Where I Belong
by BlackIceWitch
Summary: 3rd in Ramble On series. After disappearing for 2 years, Ellie reluctantly walks back into Dean's life. But being together is far from easy, with Leviathans, the spells of old gods, misunderstandings, devastating grief and an unexpected threat from the past testing their relationship. Dean/OFC. No slash, spoilers S7.
1. Chapter 1 That Was Then

**Where I Belong**

* * *

**Chapter 1**

* * *

_There's this place in me where your fingerprints still rest, your kisses still linger, and your whispers softly echo. It's the place where a part of you will forever be a part of me._

_~ Gretchen Kemp_

* * *

_**January 16th 2010**_

Ellie had just put down the phone when she heard the flutter of wings behind her. She turned around slowly, and saw Raphael's tall, slender form standing between her and the doorway to the bedroom.

"Eleanor Katherine Morgan," the archangel's voice was deep, cultured, measured, but cold. "Uriel said you were a spoiler. No line of destiny connects you to the world's fate. It really doesn't happen that often."

Ellie remained silent, watching him.

"Not feeling talkative?" He looked away from her, around the room. "No matter, there are ways to help you to help me."

He looked back at her. "I understand that you know the Winchesters."

She waited, her face impassive, but her thoughts beating frantically at her. If Dean stayed in the bedroom, if he didn't hear …

"Where are they?" His voice held the slightest hint of an edge now.

"I have no idea," Ellie said flatly. "They're hunters, they could be anywhere in the country."

"Yes, they could. But they're not. They're somewhere here, somewhere close." He stepped closer to her. "You can tell me now willingly and free of pain, or you can tell me when your mouth is filled with your blood and your organs are a puddle inside of your body. But you will tell me."

She looked at him, licking her lips nervously. "If I knew exactly where they were, I would tell you – I have no desire to become the scratch toy of an archangel, Raphael."

His eyes narrowed suddenly. "Why are you persisting in these lies? Even loyalty can only go so far."

Ellie felt her muscles tense, the hair prickle at the back of her neck. Castiel had once told her that Raphael had a very small tolerance limit. She knew he would act very soon.

"Ellie? Sam's tracked omens to –" Dean stopped halfway into the room, looking past the archangel to Ellie. Her heart sank as she looked at him.

Raphael slowly turned his head to look at Dean, and a smile stretched his mouth, utterly without humour.

"So, you've been deceiving me," he said, glancing back to Ellie. "Uriel was right. You are a meddler, wildcard. But not for much longer."

"Raphael, no hard feelings about the oil, I hope." Dean took a few steps closer to Ellie.

"Castiel will pay for that." He looked back to Dean. "You, I can't touch. At least not yet."

He turned to Ellie, raising his hand. "But you, you have meddled in our business enough."

"No!" Dean shouted, accelerating toward her. The archangel didn't look at him, but Ellie saw Dean lifted off his feet and flung to the other end of the long room. He hit the wall with a crash, bringing down a painting as he fell to the floor.

"Dean! Get out, get Sam and get out of here," she yelled as the palm of Raphael's raised hand began to glow with a fierce blue-white light.

"No, this is not happening. God–" Dean struggled to his feet, heading back toward her. There was a flash through the room as the light doubled in power. Ellie could no longer see him, as the light filled her eyes. Trust in God, she thought, narrowing them to slits.

"Castiel!" she cried out with all her strength, her will channelling the prayer outward.

"Castiel cannot help you," Raphael's voice lay beyond the light, his tone dripping with contempt.

"No, but he _will_ take Dean far from your reach," she spat back at him.

The contents of the room began to shake and rattle in their places, the building itself starting to resonate at the frequency of the light, rumbling and creaking as the light spread out, intensifying, bleeding the colour from everything it touched. She couldn't see Cas or Dean beyond the light, but she heard Dean's shout. She screamed at Castiel to take Dean out and get Sam, get them both to safety.

Raphael heard his brother take the vessel and leave. His rage was incandescent, filling him and pouring out onto the woman standing before him. Ellie ducked her head, arms crossed over her face as she heard the windows blow out one by one. The wall of the building exploded and the room was filled with wind.

Raphael let his power dissipate. He expected to see a pile of ash where she'd stood. She thought he looked very surprised to see her whole, upright and intact. She lowered her arms from her face, as the light died away completely. In her mind she listened to a voice, not really a voice but something, something that spoke to her quietly, not really in words, but in intent.

"That's impossible." Raphael stared at her, fury warring with disbelief. "No mortal can stand against my power."

She smiled at him slowly. "Hubris is a sin, Raphael. I expect you know that."

He lunged toward her, and was stopped, his body frozen in place, as his eyes widened in shock.

"Don't look at me, I'm not doing it." Ellie shrugged, picking her way through the debris and shards of broken glass that littered the floor. "Perhaps you should check first, before telling all and sundry that your Father is dead."

As she came alongside him, she turned to look into his eyes. "You cannot harm me. And you will not harm the Winchesters or Castiel. That's a message from your Father."

She walked past him to the armchair where her bag lay, picking it up by the strap and shaking it slightly to dislodge the glass and rubble from it. Slipping it over her shoulder, she went to the door and walked out, closing it behind her.

Raphael was released; he slumped forward, looking around wildly. Under the moan of the wind through the bare structure of the building, there was the sound of beating wings and he was gone.

* * *

When she reached the street, she turned left and walked another block to her truck. She threw her bag into the seat and started the engine, pulling out and turning south, heading for Missouri. She drove for an hour and then pulled off into a long lay-by, sheltered by trees.

She got out of the truck, shivering in the damp night air. She reached back in and pulled a jacket from her bag, zipping herself into it.

"Castiel? Cas? Can you hear me?" Ellie wrapped her arms around herself as she waited.

Castiel stood a few feet from her. "How is it possible?"

"Ask your Father, Cas." Ellie smiled wryly. "Are they safe? Did they get away?"

He nodded. "Dean is very unhappy."

She took a deep breath, her eyes darkening as she realised how he was going to take this. "I know. I want you tell him that I'm alive. That I'm fine. He needs to know that at least."

Castiel nodded. "Do you want to go to them?"

Ellie looked away, across the flat fields. She did, more than she could possibly say. She wanted to feel his arms around her, and look into his eyes, and know that out of all of the pain in her life and his, something amazing had come, something that felt more real than reality itself.

She shook her head. "No. Raphael found them because he could find me. I won't put them into that danger again. Not until Heaven and Hell have stopped hunting them."

"I can protect you, Ellie. Hide you from angel's view." Castiel stepped close to her and laid his hand against her side, closing his eyes. Ellie looked down at his hand, then up to his face as he frowned.

"What's wrong?"

"It's not … I can't put the sigils on you." He opened his eyes and looked at her. "Nothing's happening. You're … I don't know, immune … somehow."

She looked down at the ground, turning away from the angel beside her, thinking of the voice in her mind. So … she would be safe, but she wouldn't be able to go to him. Not without endangering him and Sam. The touch of God would be like a beacon to the angels, she realised, and possibly to demonkind as well. Would he understand? She didn't know.

She turned back to him. "Cas, you have to make Dean understand. I can't go anywhere near them until Lucifer is dead or back in the cage, and Raphael has been defeated. I think, I think I'm probably more visible now, because of what happened," she hesitated for a moment. "Tell him that I love him."

"I'll try." Castiel looked at her. "Where will you go?"

She shrugged. "It doesn't matter. So long as I'm far away from them, they'll stay safe." She wrinkled her nose. "Well, safer anyway."

"Ellie, is God alive?" His eyes suddenly filled with emotion, pleading for an answer. She smiled at him sympathetically, all too aware of his fears.

"Of course He is, Cas. How could you doubt it?" She looked down at herself. "Think a human could be smote by an archangel's power and live to tell the tale if He weren't?"

"Where is He?"

"I don't know," she said honestly. "But that's never really mattered, has it?"

* * *

_**June, 2011**_

Ellie stood looking at the church. "Lady of Serenity Church" the sign proclaimed. Castiel had been here. He was getting hard to keep track of.

She sighed and walked back to her truck. As she drove out of the town, she saw a public garden near the river. She pulled over and walked under the stone arch into it, breathing deeply of the cold spring air.

"Castiel?" She looked around. It hadn't worked the last twenty times, of course, but that was no reason to give up now.

"Ellie."

She turned around and felt her eyes widen as she looked into his face.

"Oh Cas, what have you done?" she breathed. Beneath his skin she could see them, millions of them, churning and writhing within his vessel. Since Raphael's aborted attack, her vision had changed. It was intermittent, she didn't always see things as they really were, but it had happened often enough for her to believe the visions when they came.

"What do you mean?" Castiel looked at her, without interest, without malice. "I am the new God."

"Are you, Cas?" Her eyes swept downwards, seeing the bulging of his torso. "You're burning out your vessel, Cas."

"I know. I will heal it when I'm finished."

"You can't assimilate those souls, Castiel. No one could. And there are … things … that are not souls in you, Cas. You have to release them. They'll kill you."

"No. God is dead. I am the new God and I can handle them."

"God isn't dead, Cas." Ellie looked at him sadly. "I told you that."

"That was … a long time ago, Ellie." He looked at her, noticing perhaps the compassion in her eyes. "I prayed for guidance, that I was doing the right thing. I prayed to Him for a sign, that He heard me, that He still cared."

He turned away. "There was no sign."

"Cas, He's not dead." She stepped toward him.

"Then why didn't He stop this? Why didn't He stop me?" Castiel spun around, his voice rising. "_Thou shalt have no other gods before me_; yet here I stand."

She looked at him. "You're not God, Cas."

Castiel looked her. His mind had been clouding, lately. He found it better to stick to simpler thoughts, simpler plans. He wondered if he could kill her, with the power he held now. But the thought held little interest.

"Tell Dean," Castiel began, then stopped as memory faded for a long moment. "Tell him not to rise against me. I am content to let them live if they don't betray me."

He walked to her, his eyes looking into hers. "But if they do, I will destroy them. Do you understand?"

She looked at him and nodded.

He disappeared.

Oh crap, Ellie thought as she sank on the bench behind her. This was worse than she'd imagined.

She closed her eyes. She was going to have to see them. She was going to have to see him. The thought brought conflicting emotions. Elation, sorrow, love and desire and fear churned in her stomach. She had kept tabs on what they'd done, and where they'd been, this past two years. She thought she'd made her peace with everything that had happened. Clearly she hadn't.

She sighed and got up, walking slowly to her car.


	2. Chapter 2 The Beat of Black Wings

**Chapter 2**

* * *

_**I-35N Iowa**_

Ellie felt her fingers tightening again on the wheel, and looked down at them, willing them to relax. She had another four hours driving and she could already feel the knot of tension at the base of her skull.

When Raphael had appeared in the hotel room, she had known exactly what he wanted, even before he'd spoken. She'd made it too easy for Heaven. Now she couldn't shake that anxiety, that she'd been followed or had made a mistake somehow, which would lead their enemies to them.

There was, of course, another reason she hadn't returned. It was only supposed to have been six to eight months. Just laying low, staying away from them, letting them get on with it. Then one thing after another had gone wrong.

She'd heard things from Bobby, from Rufus and others. Hunters were targeting Sam. Dean had almost given himself to Michael. And Sam … Sam had made a decision to take Lucifer back to the Cage. Castiel had told her, his admiration for the self-sacrifice evident. But Ellie had felt nothing but fear. Sam had wanted to wipe the slate clean, she thought, and Dean … Dean might not survive the loss of his brother. She'd started then to try and lose her guardians, the two angels Michael had assigned to watch her, to follow her and see if she led them to him.

The sight of blue and red flashing lights in the rearview mirror dragged her attention back to the interstate. A glance at the speedometer showed her well within the limit and she watched the two patrol cars move up and past her, heading elsewhere. She reached down and pushed the CD into the stereo, turning the volume down until she could just hear it. The delicate combination of acoustic and electric guitar filled the cab, Metallica's _Unforgiven_ bringing back memories so potently she felt her throat close suddenly, tears pricking behind her eyes.

In Oregon, Crowley had almost caught her leaving one of the gates of Hell. Iskmael had died fighting the demons that had poured after her. The other seraphim, Iophiel, had thrown some kind of deflection over them both, her proximity to the angel hiding the mark that God had left on her, but it had still taken nearly a week to work their way slowly clear of the widespread nest.

The angel had told her that the Cage was closed, that Lucifer and Michael had been trapped inside it. He'd blamed her for the death of his brother and had left, leaving the spell intact around her, stranded. By the time she'd gotten to a town, bought a car and gotten to Bobby's, two weeks had passed. Bobby had tried to explain. He'd told her that Dean had come to believe that she'd left him because she didn't want to be with him. She'd heard the words and seen, vividly in her imagination, the way he would have been.

She turned onto the 90, barely registering the signs, her hands and feet and eyes driving the truck, finding the route, while her mind looked backward. She didn't notice passing into Minnesota, and the straight, fast runs demanded little.

Bobby had told her about the promise Sam had extracted from his brother, to get out of the life. To go to Lisa and Ben and have a family, and she knew that he wanted that, he'd told her that's what he dreamed of. He'd told her that Lisa had offered him a taste of that life once, that he'd turned away because it wasn't his life then. But she'd had the feeling that he could have made it his life, if he hadn't been so worried about Sam.

Driving through the night from South Dakota to Indiana, she'd thought, if she could get there in time, he might feel differently. The empty house in Cicero had been positioned well enough to be able to watch, and see if he was happy, to see if he'd found what he'd sought. And she'd watched, feeling her heart breaking into pieces, as it became more and more obvious that he was settled, that he was happy and contented, despite his grief for his brother.

The Welcome sign of Sioux Falls took her by surprise, and she made the lefts and rights automatically, heading out along the county road to Singer's Auto Yard.

* * *

Ellie parked the truck a half mile from Bobby's place. She didn't want to see anyone other than Dean. Raphael was dead, and Lucifer and Michael were locked away, but she still had a residual uneasiness about being too close to the Winchesters, a feeling that it was too easy for someone to track them through her.

She opened the car door and got out, closing it quietly behind her, turning and leaning against the door for a moment. She'd met Gwen Campbell a few months later, and learned that Sam had been lifted, only a short time after he'd gone in. And that Samuel Campbell had been resurrected at the same time. The juxtaposition of the two events rang numerous warning bells for her, but she couldn't figure out what the purpose could have been. Only an angel could pull a soul from Hell. But which angel had? And for what purpose? Why hadn't the angel released Michael and his vessel, Adam? What the hell was going on?

She'd seriously considered going to see Dean then, but had stopped, partly because Bobby had told her that Sam had forbidden anyone contact with him, and partly because she agreed with Sam – Dean seemed good. He looked happy. Dragging him back into the life would only have ruined his dreams, destroyed his chance for peace once again. But, as it turned out, Dean was dragged back anyway.

The sun was hot and she walked slowly up the road towards Singer's Auto Yard.

"_We were wrong, Ellie. He wasn't happy. I didn't … I'm sorry, but I just couldn't tell him you'd come after he'd left. He was pissed at us for not telling him about Sam … I didn't know what he'd do." Bobby had pushed his cap back, rubbing a hand over his face tiredly. "He and Lisa, they're not living together anymore. But he said he was trying to make it work, trying to still be a part of their lives."_

_She'd shaken her head. "Then there's no room for me, Bobby. I'm going out of the country for awhile anyway. I'll keep in touch."_

That conversation had been ten months ago. She'd gone to Paris, then to Rome, working with a witch she'd met years ago on a case. Remy had been only too happy to help her forget her sorrows, and she'd thought, for a short while, that she would be able to forget, to put it all into the past. Wrong again.

She walked through the gates of the auto-yard, and stopped, listening. A rapid loud banging led her through the alleys of piled cars to the Impala, and Dean's boots, sticking out from underneath it.

She waited until the staccato hammering had stopped.

"Dean?"

"Uh … hang on," he grunted, pushing himself out. When his head had cleared the chassis, he looked up. He didn't move, didn't speak.

"Hey." Ellie smiled nervously at him, feeling her heart start to race as she looked at him, cutting her gaze away to the car as she realised that for all her attempts to forget him, to bury her feelings, not one thing had changed. With the bright sunshine on his face, his eyes were a vivid green, the freckles apparent even under the coating of dirt and oil.

"Hey." He sat up slowly, shading his eyes with his hand as he looked up at her. There was no answering smile.

She looked away, feeling her heart sink, her stomach knot. "Do you have a minute?"

"Sure." He rolled off the trolley and stood.

"Bobby around?" She looked toward the house. "Or Sam?"

"No, Bobby went to town. Sam …," he hesitated for a moment, and Ellie knew that he didn't want to talk about his brother, what had happened to him. She knew about the hallucinations, about the wall, but Dean's reticence made it clear to her that he wasn't going to tell her, didn't want her back in their lives. "Sam's in the house, sleeping." He frowned. "Why?"

"I just wanted to talk to you alone." She shrugged, looking away as she struggled to keep her feelings out of her face, out of her voice. "Any place with a bit of shade we can go?"

He turned away and walked to the shed. She followed him slowly.

"Why are you here, Ellie?" he asked, his voice clipped as they crossed the threshold and the temperature dropped in the dim shadowy interior.

"I saw Castiel." She leaned against a work bench, looking down. "He looks terrible. His vessel is going to explode."

"Yeah. Well, he won't listen to reason." Dean looked at her face, remembering each curve, every scar, fighting to keep his breathing even as memories returned, good ones and bad ones. He looked away as she lifted her head.

"He gave me a message for you, and Sam. And Bobby too, I guess. Don't rise against him, or he'll destroy you."

"That's more or less what he told us when he left," Dean said, shrugging. "I don't know what he thinks we're going to do, it's not like we have any weapon at all that can touch him."

"No weapon. No." She looked out of the partially open door to the sunlit yard beyond it. It had been a mistake to come, she realised. She could have waited until Bobby had been here alone and given him the message, the things she'd found for them. "But there's one who could probably destroy him."

"Yeah? Who?" Dean looked back at her. He was greedy for the sight of her, he admitted it to himself. He was angry as well. And hurt. No, hurt was too fucking tame a word for it. Devastated fitted better. How could she be just standing in front of him, talking to him as if everything was normal when he'd been waiting for two years to see her again?

"Death." She could hear the antagonism in his voice, the edge that lay along every word. "Death can take Castiel down."

Dean gave a shaky laugh, dragging his thoughts back to the conversation. "Sure, right. Why didn't I think of that? I'll just give him a call."

"You'll need a binding spell," she said, ignoring the sarcasm. "Crowley had one."

"Crowley? And how are we supposed to get hold of him?" Dean's brow furrowed. "He's been AWOL since Castiel turned into this ... God thing."

Ellie pulled the scroll from her bag. It had been sitting on the top. She leaned over and handed it to him, not looking at him, careful to hold it by the end.

"Summoning spell for the Prince of Hell," she said. "Actually, he's the King of Hell now I think, but only in title. All the power seems to belong to Cas."

And Crowley's sudden ascension to the numero uno position in the underworld was another question she wanted answers for, but she realised that she couldn't raise it with Dean now. Seeing him, hearing him, it was more than apparent to her that they weren't even friends any longer.

Dean unrolled the scroll carefully, skimming over the contents. He'd forgotten she did this kind of thing. Pulled rabbits out of hats. He looked at her. "How long have you been planning this?"

"About a week." Ellie resettled her bag over her shoulder, feeling tired suddenly. She'd done what she'd come for. Given him what was needed. She shouldn't have been surprised at his manner, given all that had happened. But she was. Somewhere inside, she'd hoped … she'd kept hoping … well, now she knew. For sure.

Dean looked over at her as he rolled the scroll back up, tucking it into the pocket of his shirt. There were shadows around her eyes, and she looked thin, tired. He felt a twist inside, something breaking free.

"Thanks for this. We'll get on it," he said, and his voice was softer, quieter.

She shrugged. "Up to you, that's all I could find anyway."

She couldn't look at him again. It hurt to see the hardness of his expression, the bitterness in his eyes. She had hoped, and that was gone now. She straightened up and turned, and headed toward the door. "Good luck."

Dean watched her walking away, and felt his heart slam against his ribs, adrenalin explode through his body. Two years, and he was going to let her go again, without an explanation, without another word?

The _fuck_ he was. He strode across the dirt floor behind her, his fingers closing tightly around her arm before she made the doorway.

"Wait a minute." He didn't know what the feelings were, boiling up inside of him, rage, fear or grief, but they were filling him up and he wanted some damned answers. He _needed_ some answers.

"You're just going to walk out … again," he said as he pressed her against the rough timber wall beside the shed door, his face inches from hers. She looked up at him, eyes wide, lips parted in shock as she saw the fury in his face.

"What are you talking about? I didn't 'just walk out', I told Cas to tell you –"

"Yeah, he told me. He told me that you lived through the attack of an archangel, but he didn't know how. I thought he was lying at first, some bullshit story to make me keep going, because you weren't coming back." His eyes narrowed. "Then I believed him, and I begged him to find you. I begged and I pleaded with him, Ellie. He said you'd told him not to. Not to find you, not to take me to you."

He stared down at her. "How come I didn't get a say in that? How could you make a decision like that?"

Ellie stared at him as the tiredness left and her temper started to rise, burning at the injustice of his accusation. It had been the hardest thing she'd ever had to do, and she'd done it for him. "I stayed away to protect you, Dean, you and Sam from being found by anyone who wanted to kill you, or turn you into a vessel for the Apocalypse. Raphael found you through me. Michael would have found you."

She thought of Pen's request, the Watchers had needed Michael's help, but it would only come at a cost. The man standing in front of her. However she'd survived the archangel's attack, it had lit her up like a bonfire, and she'd been easily visible to every creature from the other planes. Crowley had laughed about it.

"Yeah, right. Even after Lucifer and Michael dropped into the cage?" he grated, his anger fuelled by the memory of the long drive back to Bobby's from Kansas, Cas telling him he couldn't see her, couldn't find her. _Again_. "Who were you protecting me from then?"

Ellie felt her anger drop away as suddenly as it had risen, and memory brought pain, sharp and corrosive. She slumped slightly under his hands and her gaze dropped to the floor. In her mind's eye, she saw Bobby's face again, screwed up in apology when she'd finally made it there and he'd told her where Dean had gone.

"Me." She looked up at him, steeling herself against the emotional surge. "I knew about your promise to Sam. Bobby told me after you'd left for Indiana. I watched you fulfil it, Dean," she said, her voice shaking with her effort to control the emotions she'd thought were buried, not gone, but buried at least. She'd been wrong about that too.

Dean released her, his arms dropping to his sides in shock. "You knew about that?"

Ellie turned away from him, her chest constricting. "I thought that you deserved a normal life. It's what you wanted. You always said that was what you wanted."

She leaned against the wall, her back to him as she fought against the feelings that were rising too rapidly, closing her throat, tightening her chest, blurring her vision. "So I stayed away."

Dean leaned against the wall beside her, his thoughts and emotions churning. All this time, he'd thought … he'd hated her, he'd tried to hate her for leaving, for offering what he wanted and disappearing, for staying gone. And she'd known where he was, what he was doing, who he was with. He dragged in a deep breath.

"I thought you …" he stopped, unwilling to tell her what he'd thought, unwilling to let her see how badly he'd been hurt. "I thought you weren't coming back."

He closed his eyes as he realised what she must have seen, if she'd been there. "I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologise, Dean. You didn't know. I get it." Ellie hunched away from him. He heard the edge in her voice. He reached out his hand, touching her lightly on the shoulder. Flinching away from the touch, she moved closer to the corner. She didn't want to be here. His distance and hardness had been easier to bear than what was in his voice now.

"Ellie." He looked at her back. The implications of what she'd just said were still hitting him, one wrecking ball after another. He'd spent a year with Lisa and Ben, and had been running back to them every few weeks over the year just passed, trying to make it work, mostly making things worse.

He'd been grieving for Ellie as well as for Sam when he'd turned up on Lisa's doorstep. Grieving and angry. But while he'd been able to talk to Lisa about Sam, a little at least, there was no one he could talk to about Ellie. She'd always been the one he talked to about the things that were deepest inside of him.

And she'd been there. She'd seen it. He felt that sink into him. He knew that to anyone looking at them, him and Lisa and Ben, they'd looked happy. Sid sure hadn't been able to tell. Bobby had thought he was happy. No one had been able to see inside his mind, inside his heart, to see how he felt when he wasn't being watched.

_I wanted my brother, alive!_

He'd said that to Sam. And he'd wanted the woman who was standing in front of him. And for almost a year, he'd thought they were both gone, irretrievably gone.

He stepped closer to her again, his hands upraised, knowing that she didn't want his touch on her, but unable to stop himself. His hands curved around her shoulders, and he turned her to face him, the spasm of pain that crossed her face spearing through him.

"Don't!" She pulled free and walked away toward the interior of the shed, her thoughts jumbled and contradictory. "Just don't. Okay?"

He turned, watching her. "I can't … not," he said helplessly. "I thought … I spent the last two years wanting you back, trying to forget about you, trying to bury the past."

"You were happy with … in Indiana, Dean. I saw you."

"No. I wasn't. Maybe it looked that way from the outside, but I was living a life that was filled with lies," his voice deepened. "I thought Sam was in the Cage, trapped forever. You didn't come … when the Cage closed. Cas couldn't see you. I thought you'd … changed your mind," he stumbled over the words and thoughts and feelings.

She looked up at him, shaking her head. "You spent the last year trying to make it work out with Lisa, Dean. I wouldn't even have come here if you'd still been trying."

"I tried to make it work out with Lisa because you weren't here, because you'd disappeared," he said in frustration, unable to explain his feelings, how he'd felt as if Lisa and Ben were all that was left for him, not what he'd wanted but what he'd been allowed to have, and then even that had gone.

She shrugged, pushing down her feelings, trying to hide them again. "It doesn't matter. This can't go anywhere. We had one night, Dean. That's all it was." _And three years_, she thought, _learning about each other, relying on each other, trusting each other_.

"What the hell does that mean?" he demanded, feeling as if he'd missed something, a whole lot of something. He wondered again if what she'd said, what she'd told him, had changed. It had been one night … and three years. Three years of a slow-growing friendship that had eased his pain, that had changed the way he'd looked at things. And a night that had changed him irrevocably, giving him hope when he'd been drowning in despair.

"It means that I can't stay, and you can't go," she said, realising suddenly how true that was. What was there for them, now? The last two years had changed everything, changed the whole world. They'd both changed. They weren't the same people they'd been.

"It means that there's Sam to consider, and Castiel. And a thousand other things that are in the way, even if … even if we still … felt …" she trailed off, taking a breath, trying to get some control back into her voice. "So why go through it all again and pretend that it would be the same?"

"Bullshit. I don't buy that." He watched her, the emotions that were chasing over her face. He could see that she was scared, underneath everything else. "Did you stop loving me, Ellie?"

She looked away, her breath catching in her throat. "That doesn't have–"

"Did you?" He walked to her, cutting her off, his chest tight. "Just tell me."

_Put me out of my fucking misery_, he thought, searching her face for the truth.

She looked at him for a long moment, wanting to lie to him, to stop the conversation that way. She couldn't. She hadn't ever been able to lie to him all that well.

"No." She turned away, shaking her head. "I didn't stop loving you."

He closed his eyes. The tangle of emotions that had started agitating in him when he'd rolled out from under the car and seen her was making his heart pound, and his breath come short. He hadn't known what those feelings were, not really. He hadn't understood why they'd contradicted each other, turning him in circles, making it impossible to know why he couldn't forget her, couldn't let go. He was beginning to understand them now.

"It doesn't matter," she said, her voice unsteady. "It's too late."

"No." He stepped in front of her. "No, it's not. Don't say that."

_Don't you understand? It nearly killed me the last time_, he wanted to tell her but he couldn't make the words come out.

"I can't stay here, with you and Sam."

It had taken her so long to get to this point, the thin thread of hope she could feel in her heart was going to undo every barrier and defence she'd put in place. She tried to think logically, reasonably. There were too many obstacles. Too much pain in the past for either to live with. It would be too hard. It had been one night. _Then why can't you let him go? Why couldn't you forget him?_

"Too much has happened in between, Dean, we're not the same people we were. And you can't come with me. You won't. You need to be with your brother. This can't work."

"Don't say that." He looked down at her and reached out hesitantly, running his thumb lightly over her lower lip, absently tracing its shape. He felt her reaction as she closed her eyes tightly, the deep shiver that ran through her. His own reaction surged inside of him, shaking him, memories pouring back. "This isn't rocket science, we can figure it out."

Another thought occurred to him. "Unless you don't want to?"

She opened her eyes, looking into his, and drew in a deep breath. She could tell him she didn't want to, she knew that would stop the conversation and any possibility of a future right here and now. He would believe her because he was halfway there already. It would be the lie of her life if she did.

"I want to. I just don't see how it's possible."

"I've done a lot of impossible things. This one will be a piece of cake," his voice had dropped to a whisper as he bent his head and kissed her, his lips soft and demanding on hers, his arms going around her, pulling her closer. He was drowning. He didn't want to stop, didn't want this ever to stop. For the first time in months, in years, he felt as if he was where he should be. Exactly here. It didn't matter what fate threw at them, they would figure it out, he thought incoherently, just let her be around, this lifeline, this woman who loved him, all of him, exactly as he was.

Ellie felt her resistance – her logic, her reasoning – abandoning her as memory and senses combined. She had missed him so much. She had struggled for so long to forget him, to forget everything about him. She was still afraid, she could feel the fear inside, fear of the pain that would come if it didn't work, if they couldn't make it work.

"Stay for a little while," he said against her mouth. "Please. Stay for a while longer."


	3. Chapter 3 The Truth Shall Set You Free

**Chapter 3**

* * *

Dean led her into the house, his heart hammering, upstairs to the empty, unused bedrooms. Dragging linen from the closet, they made up the big, old-fashioned double in the room at the back of the house, clearing a space around it, pushing the cartons and boxes to one side.

He leaned on one elbow, looking down at her, almost afraid to touch her, afraid that she would vanish like a dream if he reached out. The afternoon light slanted across the room, gleaming and twinkling on the dust motes hanging in the air, turning her skin from cream to alabaster, lighting the golden flecks in her eyes as she looked up at him. He bent his head and kissed her, felt her arms entwine behind his neck. The kiss deepened immediately, filled with a hunger and an edge of desperation, a fear that this was just another dream, that he would wake and she wouldn't be there.

Ellie felt her entire body responding to him, every nerve ending, every inch of skin. She was trembling, her emotions so close to the surface that she wondered if he could see them, touch them. Her hands slid over his shoulders, down the big muscles on his back, and he moaned softly, lifting his head and kissing her neck. She turned her head slightly, lifting her arms above her head as he reached the slope of her breast, muscles contracting in anticipation, nerves on fire at the feel of his breath on her skin.

He let his tongue run around the sweet-tasting underside of her breast, and slid his hand down her side, fingertips feeling the scars to one side of her stomach, the small puckered bullet wounds that lay on either side of her belly button. It was a checklist, all the things his hands and lips and tongue knew about her body, faint surprise registering when he came across something he hadn't seen or touched before. He lapped over the nipple and let his fingers slip down between her legs, feeling the heat there before they even got close, a corresponding throb in himself as his imagination filled with memories. He wasn't going to last much longer if they went too slowly, he thought hazily, as she moved her legs and arched against him.

"Dean." The word was less than a whisper, and he looked up, into her desire-darkened eyes. "That feels great, it really does, but please, I want you, in me."

He closed his eyes at the entreaty, feeling a rush of emotion he couldn't name wash over him as he manoeuvred himself higher, holding himself above her. He felt her legs slide up the outside of his, knees against his hips and ducked his head, a tremor running up his spine that wouldn't dissipate.

"I'm shaking," he whispered against her shoulder. He'd meant to say it lightly, but it hadn't come out quite that way. He heard her sharply indrawn breath.

"Me too."

She put her arms around his neck, pulling him closer and he slid into her, eyes closing at the first push. It was exactly as he remembered and completely different. He couldn't help the moan that rushed out of him, or the shiver that goosefleshed his body as her hips lifted, driving him in deeper. He covered her mouth with his, finding that rhythm that had been very briefly theirs, the kiss intensifying the pleasure, and the pleasure intensifying the kiss in a closed loop.

He realised that he was slamming into her and tried to slow down, but her arms tightened around him, her tongue slipping under his and stroking the underside, and the combination told him that she didn't want to slow down anymore than he did. He knew he couldn't hold on any longer, when he felt her tighten around him like a fist, her body bowing upwards as his stiffened, muscles contracting violently, the flux of deep pleasure rushing outward, crackling along his nervous system, a high voltage hit lighting him up from head to foot.

Ellie couldn't stop shaking as the emotions she'd hidden or buried or shoved away surged out with the physical release. Fear and doubt, love and desire and grief were tangled up, constricting her lungs as tears rose and filled her eyes, and her body glowed and shook from the overload. She closed her eyes tightly, holding it all back, trying to breathe through it, past it, terrified that he would look at her, and see how much she needed him, see what it had really cost her to stay away.

She felt him start to move, and held him tightly. "Don't. Stay inside me, a bit longer."

It felt too needy and she turned her head to the side, away from him. Dean looked down at her, brows drawing together. Her hair was hiding her face, but he could feel her shaking, could see her pulse, beating fast against the thin skin of her neck, had heard the edge in her voice. He shifted his weight onto one arm, lifting his hand and drawing the curtain of bright hair back. The sunlight reflected on the track down one cheek, glimmered on the tear caught in her lashes.

"Ellie?"

He moved and she rolled away from him, every muscle tensed as she struggled with her reactions, the emotions. He looked at the supple curve of her back for a long moment, then slid over next to her, pressing himself against her back, snaking one arm under the pillow and wrapping the other around her waist.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, it's all-alright." Her voice broke on the word, and she felt Dean's arms close more tightly around her. "It's just reaction, it … it's just the reactions."

She couldn't explain it. She hadn't even realised herself how much she'd been holding in, not looking at, not dealing with over the last two years. She'd thought, when she'd been in Cicero, that the feelings would just go, after a while. Especially after seeing him standing next to Lisa, his arm curled around the slim woman, they'd looked happy, he'd looked happy. But they hadn't gone. She'd hunted and researched, she'd looked for other relationships, she'd felt relatively normal. She supposed that the dreams weren't really normal, but they didn't affect the rest of the time, just the nights, when she'd been alone.

Seeing him again, it was as if the time they'd been apart hadn't existed. The walls and barriers she'd put in place to keep from thinking about him, to keep from feeling, had crumbled the second he'd touched her. And lying in this bed with him, making love with him again … that had been a hundred times more powerful. She rubbed her eyes, wiping the tears from her face. She could feel his heart, beating against her back, a little fast.

"I guess I didn't do such a good job of trying to forget you." She turned a little and he made room for her to turn over, his eyes dark with concern when they met hers.

"That makes us about even, then," he said lightly, drawing her closer.

* * *

The sun was sinking as Dean leaned back against the pillows propped against the old-fashioned bedstead. He looked down at Ellie, lying beside him. His fingertip traced the new scars, a bullet graze across her ribs, a broad slash over her hip. He didn't want to think too deeply about those wounds. He knew his body bore scars that were new to her as well. It was the reality of their life.

They'd heard Bobby's truck pull in a couple of hours before. Soon, not yet, but soon they would have to leave this sanctuary, get up, face the real world and work out how to deal with … everything.

He'd told her they could figure it out, how to be together in a life that wasn't stable, wasn't secure, wasn't safe, but he didn't know where to start. He couldn't hold her, not really, and not because she didn't love him, he was able to believe again that she did. But she'd been right. She was a hunter and she would have to go sometimes, and he would have to let her go sometimes. He thought that as long as she came back, it would be alright. He hoped it would be alright.

It went against his grain to let her go without his protection, but he couldn't pretend that she wasn't as capable, perhaps more so after years of hunting alone, as he was.

Ellie looked up at him. The corner of his mouth lifted, in the half-smile she knew well.

"Finished with the inventory?" she asked him. He looked down at her body and exhaled softly, shrugging.

"I expect you tell me about these, you know."

"One day. When there's loads of time and nothing better to do," she said, wriggling up to lean against his shoulder. "Dean …"

"Yeah?" He looked at her profile, frowning as he saw the remoteness in her eyes, recognising that distancing as her way of dealing with pain. "Ellie?"

"Can you just hold me, for a little while?" She pressed against him, her cheek against the side of his neck.

He straightened a little, wrapping his arms around her, kissing her hair, drawing her close to him.

"I'm sorry, Ellie," he whispered. He couldn't put himself into her place, not deliberately imagine what she had seen, what she must have thought, felt. Stepping into that sort of pain would undo him.

He'd held to the promise he'd made Sam and while he could have told her that was all that it was, it wasn't the truth. The woman he held was the one person he could tell the truth to – the whole truth, unvarnished, unafraid of her reactions.

He'd cared for Lisa, and loved Ben … but the life he'd shared with them had been a pretence. And all through that year he'd struggled with the lies, and the half-truths and the omissions to make it possible to live that life, he'd felt himself dying a little each day, from the lack of the things that had made his hunting life not only bearable, but essential to him. The sense of purpose and meaning that saving people had given him. His brother, free from the Cage. And the woman he was holding now.

It was ironic that the life he'd tried to escape from for so many years had been the thing that had given him the most to be proud of, the thing that had structured the way he felt about himself. It had taken that year to realise that without it, he had no feelings about himself at all. He'd wondered at the time if he would feel differently if Sam hadn't been in Hell. He would've, of course, but not all that much. The family life had given him peace. And peace, he'd found, wasn't worth the loss.

He'd told himself that Ellie was gone for good. He'd raged against her leaving and convinced himself that she'd left because what she'd told him was a lie. He'd tried to convince himself that she'd stopped loved him. But even then he'd known it wasn't true. It was something to help him get by, to deal because if he could be angry at her, then he didn't have to grieve.

"It didn't feel real," he said quietly, trying to find the words to express everything he'd felt. "It felt like a long, vivid dream most of the time. The nightmares. Sam gone. You gone. Drinking too much. Trying to explain to someone without any background what my life had been like. And knowing, the whole time, that I wouldn't be able to. I couldn't tell her the way it was."

He didn't know if what he was saying was helping, or hurting Ellie more. She was half-curled against him, her head bowed, her eyes closed, her arms curled over her breasts. But he could feel the soft splash of her tears against his skin.

"If I'd known …" he hesitated. "If I'd known the truth …," he stopped again, looking for the honesty that he needed now. There wasn't enough time to go right through it. But she needed to know the truth.

"No. If I'd _believed_ what Cas had told me. About why you'd left. If I'd even guessed …" he stopped again, trying to control the regret, all that time wasted, that was making it making it more and more painful to breathe, to talk. "Cas couldn't find you, after Sam … you know. And I wasn't thinking straight, then or later."

He remembered how quickly he'd come to the conclusion that she hadn't meant what she'd said, how quick he'd been to believe that he was too broken for anyone to love, Famine's words still echoing in his head, even after all this time.

"I was too ready to believe that … that you … that you didn't … that things had changed. That you didn't want to come back."

She shuddered against him and he tightened his grip around her.

"I didn't know what I was feeling, half the time. The rest, I couldn't look at." And the hits had kept on coming, last year had been a cluster-fuck of gargantuan proportions, starting with Sam not being Sam anymore and ending with Cas' betrayal. If he'd had any time to stop and think, he would have laid down and died sometime through the year, adrenal overload or just not being able to function.

He pushed those memories aside. Everything that could have gone wrong, had. There wasn't much else to say about it. It didn't change anything, didn't excuse the fact that he'd given up.

"I thought I knew about being in love, thought I'd felt that way before. I didn't realise until last year that what I felt for you …" He shook his head. "It was different. Uh … powerful, and the feelings kept changing, from one thing to another, I couldn't get a handle on it. I didn't recognise it."

_You're not supposed to say it when you're having sex. Or making love. One of those clichés that instantly predisposes disbelief._ But it had all come together then. Knowing what the feelings were, knowing why they'd been so overwhelming, so contradictory. He looked down at her.

"Now, I do. When I saw you … everything came back. And it started to make some sense. I can exist without you. I can do what I have to, but it's not living, and I feel as if I'm dead inside. When I saw you … that deadness, the emptiness … just disappeared." He lifted her face to his, his eyes meeting hers.

Looking into their brightness, the lashes wet and sticky with her tears, he found the words he wanted to say, felt the rightness of them for the first time in his life, knew that no matter what happened, they would remain true.

"I love you."

* * *

Bobby sat at the kitchen table, reading as he ate. He looked up as Dean and Ellie made their way downstairs and came into the bright room. He hadn't seen Ellie for a few months, but he remembered the tension that had been humming in her the last time he had. He couldn't see that now. She was still too thin, but the hard edges had softened, somehow.

And Dean … he had to work to keep his face expressionless as he looked at the younger man. The anger, the doubt and the fear had gone, for the first time he could remember in a long, long time. Dean looked … contented. Bobby frowned inwardly. Had he ever seen him look like that? Maybe, when the man had been a boy. Not since, he was pretty sure.

"Thought I recognised that truck down the block. You trying to avoid me, Ellie?"

She smiled, shaking her head. "No Bobby, just didn't want to advertise who I was visiting."

Bobby looked at Dean, his face half-shadowed by the cap. "She's a smart girl."

"Yeah, I think so too." He nodded, the corner of his mouth lifting wryly.

Bobby looked from one to the other, his heart lifting. At least something could go right. "You get yourselves sorted out this time?"

Dean slid his arm around Ellie, struggling against the temptation to kiss her in front of Bobby. The hunger that he'd thought was satiated seemed to be coming back. "I hope so."

Ellie ducked her head and smiled. It was still hard to believe. She moved to the table, aware of him beside her, and they pulled out a couple of chairs, sitting down across from Bobby.

Dean slid the summoning scroll across the table to Bobby. "We've got some work to do."

Bobby unrolled it and read, his eyebrows shooting up under his cap. "This for Crowley?"

Dean nodded, his gaze cutting sideways to the woman beside him. She'd refused to elaborate on where she'd gotten the spell, or how. "Ellie got it."

Bobby looked at her, eyes narrowed. "Now, where the hell did you find this?"

"Hell." She smiled at him enigmatically.

"She won't tell you about it, Bobby, so don't even bother asking," Dean said sourly.

Bobby looked at him and then back at Ellie. The spell he held in his hands was no minor league incantation. He'd never seen one quite like it, in fact. He had a feeling that he didn't really want to know where she'd gotten it.

"And why're we summoning Crowley?"

Ellie leaned forward, propping her elbows on the table. "To get a binding spell for Death, of course."

Bobby blinked. He looked from her to Dean. "You want to bind Death?"

He glanced at Ellie, and back to Bobby, exhaling noisily. "Not really. But Death is probably the only one who can kill Cas now."

He still wasn't sure that this was the best course of action. Death hadn't liked being on Lucifer's leash, and despite the righteousness of their cause, he suspected the entity wouldn't be any more sanguine about being bound by them. The risks were enormous. The chance of success small. What else was new?

"It's gonna take me some time to get this stuff together." Bobby looked back at the scroll, pushing aside his misgivings on the advisability of binding Death, and focussing on how he was going to acquire the ingredients.

He glanced up at them, catching the look they were sharing and smiled slightly. He'd watched Dean pretend that his heart hadn't been broken, when Sam had gone into the cage, and Ellie hadn't shown up. He watched Ellie pretend the same thing when she'd arrived weeks after Dean had left for Indiana, and he'd had to tell her about the promise.

Lisa had been a nice woman, and Dean had clearly cared for her. But she'd been a civilian and he'd been able to tell that she didn't know much of what had made up the life of the man she'd been living with. Wasn't ever going to know about it, he'd thought, watching them together. He'd wanted to tell Dean about Ellie's visit back then, when he'd brought Lisa and Ben to this house. But when Dean had told them what that year had cost him, he just couldn't. He'd realised that they'd been wrong, so wrong about Dean.

He should have stepped up and told him then, he thought, looking at them now. Dean had been ready to leave Lisa, to go hunting with his brother again. He had no doubt that a lot of the misery of the last year wouldn't have occurred if he had. He sighed. Wasn't much use crying over spilt milk.

* * *

"Stay until morning," Dean said against her neck, his breath sending a shiver through her nerves.

Ellie turned from the car door, into him, her arms slipping around him. "You're going to be busy most of the night anyway."

He shrugged. "I still want to wake up with you."

She swallowed, the unexpected tenderness in his voice stirring her. "Next time."

He frowned at her. "When?"

She sighed. "Not long. I don't know when exactly. But I should be able to get back next week." She looked at his face. "Or depending on where you guys are, I'll meet you wherever."

He nodded slowly, realising that nothing was going to be as simple as he'd hoped for. He didn't want her to leave at all. "You were right. This isn't going to be easy to figure out."

"Cas brought something out of Purgatory … I don't know what they are. But we need to find out."

"Yeah." Dean said. "I'll let you know how we do with Crowley, and … the other one."

She looked at him, reaching up to put her arms around his neck. He leaned down, capturing her mouth. The kiss was a place marker, a promise. They were too attuned to each other right now to let it linger or deepen too much. Dean held her for a moment, not ready to let go.

"Drive safe."

She nodded, and released him, turning away to slide behind the wheel. He shut the door and took a couple of steps back as she started the engine, and pulled away. He watched her taillights disappear around a corner and then slowly turned and walked back to the house.

Logically, rationally, it made sense. She had a lot of contacts, in more fields than he, Sam and Bobby could round up between them. But he wished she'd stayed. The last couple of weeks had been crap from beginning to end. And it looked very much as if it was only going to get worse.

* * *

_What the heart has once owned and had, it shall never lose._

_~ Henry Ward Beecher_


	4. Chapter 4 Harder Than He Thought

**Chapter 4**

* * *

_It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell._

~ _Buddha_

* * *

_**September, 2011. Indiana**_

"You know what he did?" Sam waved the glass around, its contents splashing up perilously close to the rim. "He went and killed her. After I'd told him that I let her go. And then he lied to me."

Ellie nodded sympathetically. It wasn't the first time she'd seen Sam drunk, but it was the first time she'd seen him loud, and this angry with his brother. It was the lie that had done it, of course.

The bar was about half full of customers, watching a football game replay on the big screen to one side of the room, or leaning up against the counter, having a last one for the road. A few looked around at Sam's outburst, but most continued to mind their own business, the antics of a stranger of no interest.

He looked around and then down at her, and slouched back into his chair. "He doesn't trust me to make a simple decision, Ellie." He shook his head. "The hallucinations are really pretty manageable now. I know how to get rid of them. But he acted like I was one step away from turning into Sybil."

"He's scared to death for you, Sam," she reminded him gently. "It doesn't excuse what he did, what he's doing, but it's the reason for it."

Sam nodded slowly. "Maybe. But I can't take it anymore."

His brow furrowed as he looked at her. "Where the hell have you been, anyway? He was a lot better when you were here, the last time."

"Up to my neck in weirdo monsters that bleed black blood," she said, her face registering her distaste. "Pen told me that Castiel had died. I tried to get back then – I knew he wouldn't be taking that well. But things got chaotic pretty quickly."

"Yeah, he really needed you then," Sam agreed, remembering his brother's grief. "Cas meant a lot to him, even after the betrayal."

She rubbed her eyes and sighed. "I knew this was going to be hard to work out."

Sam looked at her, his attention sharpening. "Don't get me wrong, Ellie. I'm glad you stayed. But when you're not around, he forgets, he gets lost again."

"Do you know where he is, Sam?"

"He left a message yesterday. Said he was in Carrs Mill, PA." He finished his drink tiredly. "I can't talk to him, Ellie. I …" He shook his head helplessly. "I need time on my own."

"Sam, take care of yourself first." She looked at the empty glass. "Don't try and blunt the edges like Dean does. Sort through it, get it clear for yourself."

"Yeah," he sighed, giving her a rueful half-smile. "Make him listen, Ellie. Make him talk. He's a pressure cooker on high heat, and he doesn't know it, he won't look at it."

She nodded, standing and picking up her coat from the back of the chair. She pulled it on and retrieved her backpack from the floor. "I'll see you later, Sam. Take care of yourself, and stay in touch."

"Yeah. You too."

* * *

On the long drive east, Ellie thought about what Sam had told her. The last few weeks had been very hard on them both. Losing Castiel, the Leviathans, Dean's resurfacing guilt and Sam's hallucinations. She hadn't been surprised to hear about those actually. The stressors on his mind had been considerable; it had to come out somehow. Dean's advice had been sound, and had given Sam a tool to use at any time.

Sam's advice to Dean had been good too, she thought with a flash of annoyance at the man she loved. Why hadn't he taken it?

The question was the answer. The question was always the answer. If it was the correct question.

* * *

The streets were bathed in the ghostly lavender light of dusk as she drove slowly into Carrs Mill. The small town's only motel was at the eastern end, set back from the road, near the river. She pulled in and parked in the visitor's parking slot, turning off the engine and listening for a moment to the tick of the hot metal cooling.

Sighing, she reached over to the passenger seat and lifted her bag. She got out of the truck slowly, scanning the row of parked cars in front of the rooms. Bobby had told her that the Impala was hidden away now, some anonymous storage place that only Dean knew about. Sam had described the little hatchback, but she was pretty sure that he wouldn't be driving that anymore.

_There_. At the far end of the row, the light blue '72 Plymouth Duster. She walked along the row, and smiled suddenly as she got near enough to see which state the plates were from.

Walking up to the corresponding room door, the smile disappeared. She knocked twice, then once, then once again.

The door opened slowly. Dean looked at her, his face twisting into an expression she couldn't define. He looked tired, she thought. He opened the door wider, standing back and she stepped through.

"You know," he said conversationally, as he closed the door behind her. "I don't know which is worse, thinking you're lying somewhere dead, or thinking that you've left for good."

"I don't work for Amtrak, Dean. The schedule gets messed up sometimes. You know that."

"Phones were invented to make it possible to talk with people even if they're far away," he said levelly. At that, her temper hit a sudden flashpoint.

"Then maybe you could pick one up, because when I tried, all your old numbers were disconnected! And Sam's. And even Bobby's. Mine seems to be the only number that's still working!"

She turned away from him, walking to the sofa to dump her bag. The room showed a couple of days of constant occupancy, the kitchen bench covered with the debris from several take out places, the bed rumpled, a half dozen empty beer bottles on the low table in front of the sofa, two empty whiskey bottles sitting in the sink. She looked at those for a long moment, her heart sinking slightly.

"Do we have to go through this every time?" She turned back to him. "I know I should been around weeks ago, Dean. I know you needed me. Why do you think for a minute I haven't been frantically trying to get back since I left?"

She watched his expression change, his shoulders slumping as he leaned back against the door. She felt her anger drain away; his hunted expression and the apathy in his posture knifing into her heart.

"Dean." She walked over to him slowly. "I'm sorry. I have been trying to reach you, anyway I could."

She reached up, her arms sliding around his neck, pressing close to him. His arms encircled her and she felt a faint shudder pass through his frame as he finally let go of his anger, his fears and doubts. How could she get through to him? What would it take before he believed in her?

"What happened this time, Ellie?" he said quietly next to her ear.

"Leviathans. At least that was what Bobby called them. They were what Cas was carrying around from Purgatory, weren't they?" She pressed her cheek to his, feeling his stubble rasp along her skin.

"Yeah." He straightened, rubbing his hand along his cheek and jaw, looking at the faint redness along her cheek. "Sorry. I haven't been too worried about personal appearance lately."

She shook her head dismissively. "That doesn't matter."

She looked around the room. "Have you eaten?"

"No." He thought for a moment. "There's a good place around the corner."

"Let's go. I'm starving." Ellie extracted her wallet, phone and keys from her bag, and put them into her jacket pocket. "We can talk about what's been happening over dinner, okay?"

* * *

The 'good place' was actually very good, a riverside bistro style restaurant with an astonishing menu. They sat in a small booth overlooking the river, lit intimately by a thick candle in a glass vase. Ellie watched the waitress' face fall as she came up to their table, looking from Dean to herself. Dean's flickered glance to her confirmed that the waitress was indeed disappointed that he had other company tonight.

When she'd taken their order and left, Dean looked apologetically at Ellie. "It was just … talk."

She shook her head. "Dean … so not important considering everything else."

He frowned but let it go at that. "So where were the Leviathans you ran into?"

"Where weren't they?" She sighed. "Nebraska, Iowa, a hunter called me from Missouri."

She looked at him. "It took us four weeks to track them. When Bobby told me about the Borax and the decapitation, I hunted up some reasonable quality industrial boron and started using that. Chopped off the heads, packed the cavity with boron and buried the two parts in different locations. One of them we covered with concrete. The other one was encased in hot steel. I hope it was enough. I didn't see any twitching when we were doing it."

Dean's brows rose. "That sounds … thorough. Uh … we?"

She glanced at him. "Paddy Morrison, the hunter in Missouri."

"Uh huh." He looked out of the window. Despite everything, Ellie could feel her mouth curving into a smile.

"He's sixty three, Dean."

"Oh." But the slight tension in him disappeared. Ellie took a deep breath. They didn't really have time for this.

"How many, Dean? How many did Cas bring through?"

He shook his head. "We don't know. Not for sure. A lot."

She reached out her hand and covered his. "I'm so sorry about Cas. I know how much he meant to you."

Dean's eyes closed. "He made a mistake, he paid for it."

"Don't shut that grief away, along with all the rest, Dean," she warned him softly.

He opened his eyes, looking into hers. "I don't have time to grieve, Ellie. For anyone."

"Then make time." She leaned forward slightly. "Let it go. It's eating you alive."

He looked up as their food came, forcing a smile for the waitress who fussed slightly over his silverware and water glass.

"That's not the only thing," he said to Ellie when she'd gone.

"I know," she said quietly, picking up her fork. "Bobby told me some of what you've been doing. And Sam filled some stuff in. But I want to hear about it from you."

He gave her a rueful smile. "That's going to take time."

"We have some time."

"What'd Sam tell you?" He cut his steak and lifted it. "He tell you about the hallucinations?"

She nodded. "Yes. I wasn't surprised. Reintegration is always a tricky thing, but he's managing it well. He'll heal. He wants to."

Dean stopped chewing for a moment, looking at her. "Meaning I don't?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

"You know I do."

"What you're saying, and what you're doing are contradictory. You're drinking again, really drinking. And the nightmares have started again."

"Sam tell you that?" he asked guardedly.

"Yeah. Don't look at me like that," she said. "I asked him how you'd been. Bobby told me more or less the same things."

He turned back to his food.

"I thought we had a plan, Dean," she pressed. "You ask for help when you need it."

"You had a plan," he said, staring at his plate. "I had friends dying, new, improved monsters coming out of the woodwork, my brother hallucinating that Lucifer was showing up all the time for cosy little chats, and letting monsters go free, a broken leg, the car busted to hell and gone, getting off the grid …"

He looked up. "I was just trying to hold it all together, Ellie. I didn't have time to do anything but get my crap swept away and held down as fast I could shovel it."

She nodded. "Okay, fair enough. But now, you do have the time."

"Do I?" His expression was suddenly vulnerable as he looked at her. "How long can you stay?"

"Long enough. A few days."

"A few days?" Dean shook his head. "This isn't going to work."

"You wanted to try," she reminded him. "I told you it would be hard."

"I know." He looked at her bleakly. "I just didn't know how it was going to feel."

"Don't shut me out," her voice had a faint edge, as she wondered what was going through his mind. "Dean …"

He shook his head, and took a deep breath. "It's getting too hard. Every time I turn around there's something else going wrong. I don't know how to deal with this crap. When you're around, I can look at stuff and get a handle on it – but I don't know why that is. And when you're not here, Ellie … it … just falls apart." He looked away. "I don't know what the hell I'm doing."

She took his hand, holding it tightly. "Don't you give up, not on us, not on yourself."

* * *

They walked back to the motel along the riverside path in silence, watching the moon's reflection follow them on the almost still waterway. Dean walked close to her, his arm around her shoulder, hips almost touching. He thought about what he'd said in restaurant. It was true, he just hadn't realised that it was happening, at the time it was. He couldn't think of any way that was going to change, either.

He opened the door and held it for her, noticing with a faint grin that she moved out of the doorway to the right immediately, and her hand was in the pocket of her jacket. He closed the door and hit the light switch, and the room proved to be empty, but it reassured him to realise that even with him, after a long drive and a meal, she was still a hundred percent alert and ready.

He watched her place her jacket on the chair, pulling out the SIG she carried and putting it matter-of-factly under the pillow.

When she turned back to him, he was smiling at her, a real smile, that lit his eyes and softened the lines of his face.

"What?" She looked sideways at him, hands on her hips.

"Just you, prepared for anything." He shrugged and walked over to her, letting his fingers slip through her hair, looking down into her upturned face. "I missed you."

"I missed you too," she said softly, linking her hands behind his back. "I like the Duster, though."

He laughed, amazing himself with the feeling. "Yeah, I couldn't resist."

He bent and kissed her, letting his arms curve around her as she leaned into him, deepening their contact, a gentle moan, like an exhale, escaping her.

* * *

Ellie stepped out of the shower, wrapping the towel around her and drying her hair, feeling the last of the tensions of the past twenty four hours vanish. When she came back into the room, Dean was already in bed, the takeout containers, bottles and trash gone, the bed made. She smiled slowly at him, letting the towel drop as she walked toward him, watching his gaze move over her body, seeing his chest rising and falling faster as his breathing accelerated.

He rolled onto his elbow as she slid across the sheet beside him, feeling the tensions and worries of the past few weeks dissolve as his lips met hers. She stroked his skin, her hands smoothing over his chest and stomach lazily, and he rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of him, his hands sliding up from her hips, feeling the dip of her waist and corrugations of her ribs. He took his cue from her, moving slowly, lazily, enjoying the feel and smell and taste of her.

When she slipped down his body, her hair trailing over his skin, his pulse jumped, but she was moving slowly, taking her time, and he felt each caress, the seconds spacing out between them, the feel of her mouth, of her tongue, her fingers, not gentle exactly but drawn out, stretching the sensations until he almost couldn't bear it.

Ellie looked up the length of his body, feeling the twitches in his muscles, the contractions as she took him close then eased off. She moved, straddling his hips, rocking her own over him, then took him in, slowly, feeling him stretch her, that amazing feeling of being filled, of two halves joining perfectly to make a whole. His eyes opened, soft and dark with arousal and she leaned forward slightly, holding her hands out to him, his fingers lacing with hers, hips swinging forward and back as she rose and fell. Each swing caught the supersensitive bundle of nerves inside, and her eyes closed, her head rolling back as that pleasure became deeper and stronger.

He watched her, his fingers gripping hers, as she arched back, moving faster, feeling the muscles inside her throbbing against him. His hips jerked as he thrust into her, matching her rhythm, everything tightening, drawing up when he felt the staccato rippling of her travelling up him. She stopped moving, the muscles around him clenched tight and he exploded inside her, his back arching, nerves overloading under the wash of sensation that spread through him.

* * *

Dean lay still, hearing Ellie's breathing slip into the steady rhythm of sleep, his arm around her, her head nestled into the hollow of his shoulder. He felt exhausted, physically and mentally and emotionally, his body satiated, the muscles soft and loose and heavy, but he couldn't sleep, couldn't stop his mind from circling the same problems, the one same problem really, because if he could solve that, then all the others would become manageable.

He wanted her to stay. He needed her to stay. With him.


	5. Chapter 5 Guilt Is A Pointless Emotion

**Chapter 5**

* * *

Dean leaned over and turned on the lamp beside the bed, glancing down at Ellie as the light dispelled the shadows around them. His heart was hammering, his skin too warm, his breathing too fast. The dream had been the same. He shook his head impatiently and reached for the glass that he usually left on the nightstand. He stopped as his fingers curled around it, letting it go.

She was right. It did him no good to drink it away, or bury it, or do anything but face it up front and centre and deal with it – the whole damned mess. He could hardly believe now that he'd summoned and bound Death to kill Cas, back when that was all they could think of to stop him.

The angel's gratitude, when the souls had been returned to Purgatory, and he was still alive, had cut Dean to the bone. Especially since they'd been unable to save him from the stowaways he'd still been carrying. But it was marred by the betrayal he still felt, a slow-burning anger at Cas for his pride, his stubborn insistence on winning the wrong way, and the expedient act of breaking the wall in his brother's mind, purely as a diversion.

How did he reconcile the two feelings? How could he grieve for his friend, and hate the angel at the same time? Every nightmare started with Cas promising to make amends for what he'd done and dying as the Leviathan took him over. They all ended up with Cas staring at him with cold, pitiless eyes, as he touched Sam and left them. Out of order, he'd thought more than once on waking in a cold sweat, shivering no matter what the temperature of the room was, and wanting to throw up. It didn't matter. Cas was dead. If he couldn't find a way to forgive the sonofabitch the nightmares would keep coming.

And he couldn't. He'd tried to grieve for the angel who'd defied Heaven and pulled him out of Hell. The cold eyes got in the way, turning his sorrow to anger every time. He could try to drink it away but it wouldn't do much. His tolerance for alcohol was higher than ever and he was trying not to think about his liver. He was trying to push too much away and it was rebounding on him.

He felt the familiar rush of sorrow as he remembered Cas' face, the often uncomprehending expression, the depth of the angel's compassion when he did understand. He let it come in, like the tide, seeping slowly through the walls he kept in his mind. He tried to say goodbye, tried to hope that God had forgiven Cas for his pride, his mistaken course, because he just couldn't. He leaned back against the pillows propped behind him, looking for a way to understand, to let him go. Looking for a way to keep the sorrow and let the anger go.

He could feel her, the warmth of her body against his thigh, his hip, her arm pliant and loosely draped over his stomach; her head nestled against his side. She was sleeping, her breathing slow and regular. He wondered why it was easier to face everything when she was there, even when she was sleeping. He felt stronger with her beside him, he knew that. Was that a weakness? Or was it a strength he didn't yet know how to use?

Some of the grief leeched out of him, and he felt lighter and empty … and tired. There was no use holding a grudge against the dead … the thought remained as his eyes closed, and his breathing steadied.

* * *

When he woke again, the room was still shadowy, the lamp turned off. He stretched out carefully, slowly, revelling in the peace, in how rested he felt. There had been no more nightmares and his sleep had been sound, deep, restorative. He felt Ellie's hand move, sliding provocatively down his side, curving up over his thigh. Desire leapt like a bolt of lightning through him. She lifted her head and smiled at him, her fingers stroking his skin. He felt his heart give a sudden double-beat as she slid closer, her thigh sliding over his.

It continued to surprise him that her touch always felt like the first time. He'd been with a lot of women. Each one had been different and of them all, he'd only had a couple of disappointing encounters. But his body had never reacted to anyone else the way it did to hers, as if she knew exactly where and how to touch him, without him ever having had to tell her, as if it was the first time he'd been touched there or in that way, the race of fire through his nervous system new and unique each and every time. He thought – he hoped – it was the same for her, he had no technique when they were together, acting on impulse and she seemed to feel the same pleasure and enjoyment as he did.

His thoughts fell away as he rolled onto his side, drawing her close, a throbbing ache filling him as his mouth covered hers.

* * *

They ate breakfast at a small diner on the main street, afterwards walking down to the river, to follow the neatly concreted path along its edge.

"You look better," Ellie commented, looking at his face.

He nodded. "I feel better. Not so many nightmares when you're sleeping with me."

She smiled, and tucked her arm through his. "Tell me about Osiris and Jo."

He took a deep breath. "I know I shouldn't feel guilty about it. Even Jo's spirit told me that." He sighed. "She had her whole life ahead of her, you know? And I … well, I could've dropped dead any time in the last few years and been happy about it. Well, not happy, but not felt as if my life had been cut short."

They walked down to the river's edge and watched the play of sunshine on the water, the ducks coming in to land along the stretch near the far bank, the river's daily routine and business.

"I thought she had … a crush, I guess you'd call it … on me. But now … I don't think she did. For a long time, all I felt for her was a weird combination of protective older brother, and the occasional desire for her, usually at the most inappropriate moment." He shook his head.

Ellie watched the movement of the water, listening to him finding his way slowly.

"The day she died, she was different though. She handled herself … I don't know … you could see the woman she might have become."

He thought back and remembered her face, her logic, her will, indomitable, implacable, forcing even Ellen to face the truth about the situation. She'd been afraid, he remembered, but she'd clenched her jaw and risen above that, her courage adding another dimension to her that he'd been unable to forget. And that was a part of the problem, he realised suddenly. He really had seen the woman she would have become, and that was where his guilt lay.

"She was just a kid, Ellie. She should have been able to grow into that woman."

"Yes. But no matter what you tried to do, she was dying. So she chose to do what she could," Ellie said softly, her gaze still on the river.

He looked at her, considering. "I guess. She wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for me."

"Perhaps. She was a hunter, even Ellen couldn't stop that. She'd already faced the possibility of death."

He turned his head and looked at the river, the endless flow of the water, from the mountains to the sea. "You're saying it was destiny?"

Ellie shook her head. "No. Free will is our strength and our weakness."

He looked at her, his brow wrinkling. "What do you mean?"

She turned away from the river, walking up the bank for a few feet, and settled herself in the long grass, drawing her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on her crossed arms. "I mean that we always have the choice of which path we take. But sometimes people take the easier path, the one that someone else has chosen for them."

"And Jo didn't?"

She smiled slightly. "She certainly didn't follow the path Ellen chose for her, did she?"

He walked up the bank and sat beside her. "I should let go of this?"

"What do you think?" She didn't look at him, watching the flow of the river, the life that filled its surrounds. "Do you think that Jo chose freely?"

He sighed. "Yeah. She chose freely."

"I don't think Osiris nailed me over Jo's death though," he added a moment later.

"No. You felt guilty about the kitsune, not so much about killing her, but about lying to Sam about it."

He glanced at her. "Yeah."

He lay back in the grass. "You know me pretty well."

She glanced over at him, a half-smile lifting a corner of her mouth. "You think so?"

"I know so." He closed his eyes, feeling the sunshine on his face, warming, life-giving. "I can't do this with anyone but you. Why is that?"

"Trust?"

"I guess. Why do I have so much trouble in trusting how you feel? That you're not going to leave?"

"I don't know. You've had a lot of experience with people leaving," she said quietly. "I know it's in your mind, when I can't make it back quickly."

Her words, spoken without emotion or drama, hit him hard. He'd never considered how she might be feeling when she couldn't get to him. Probably because she was offhand about the details of what had kept her, but still … the last few weeks must have been torture, knowing what he'd been going through, unable to reach him, unable to get past the Leviathans that lay between them. He thought about how that would have felt if it had been him, instead of her. He sat up, shifting closer.

"I'm sorry."

She looked at him, her eyes searching his. "I didn't tell you about Alaska, did I?"

"No." He straightened, his brows drawing together as he focussed his attention. She'd been gone for seven months on that case, and had never told him about it. It had made him wonder why, what could have happened. The long claw marks that scarred her side from breast to hip had appeared after it.

Ellie looked back at the river, her voice soft. "We had to fly into the mountains. The tskuareg had been freed by a team of vulcanologists working in the Chigmit range, the land end of the Aleutians. They were all dead by the time we arrived, and the creature was … well, pretty well fortified in their camp. By morning, we'd lost two more men, and Denis had been opened up by it. There was nothing I could do for him. I did manage to kill it, more by luck than skill. But not before it had destroyed the camp, the plane, every means of getting out there, other than on my feet."

He listened to her, the images playing on his imagination, preying on it.

"It took me a bit over five months to walk out of the ranges and down to Anchorage." She lifted her hand in a small, dismissive gesture. "It's not that far, about two hundred miles or so, but the terrain is pretty rough and I was injured in the fight, just too tired, I was careless. The wounds became infected before I'd done even twenty miles. I spent a month crawling around the forest looking for plants to get rid of the infection, food to eat. It got better. Enough to keep going, at least until the first of the winter storms came." She sighed deeply. "I hurried; I didn't think I'd survive the winter."

She looked up the river, her eyes filled with memory. "It was hard, Dean. There were a lot of times that I was so tired, so cold, I wanted to lie down and give up. The only reason I didn't was because of you. What I really wanted was to get back to you."

He stared at her profile, his throat closing up as he registered the words, what lay behind the words. He couldn't believe it, not yet, not really.

"You asked me before about believing in God. Well, that was when I found my belief. A fractured femur, another sixty miles of mountain side to get down, bear, wolf, barely enough food to survive on, let alone travel on. I prayed for help."

She shook her head at the inadequacy of the words, a thread of humour appearing in her voice. "Boy, did I pray for help. And I felt a strength pour into me, and I kept my mind fixed on you, on just getting back to you." She looked at him, lifting one shoulder in a casual shrug. "I made it."

She turned back to the river, pushing her hair back from her face with the inside of her wrist. "I don't mean all that to sound melodramatic – I just wanted you to know that … this … the way I feel about you … I'm not going to leave. It was too hard to get here."

He could only stare at her profile, reeling from what she'd said.

"Why didn't you tell me this before?" he finally asked, his voice thick.

"I didn't want to lay another burden on you." Her mouth twisted. "I was … scared, I guess. That wherever you were with yourself, how you felt, the guilt, and the pain you were carrying … that you'd take this on board as well, and that it would … distort … the way you were feeling." She turned to him, meeting his eyes. "I wanted to be sure that what you felt wasn't because of what I'd done. Or said."

He shook his head. "Ellie …"

He had, despite what many thought, a vivid imagination. Alastair had explained to him, in some depth, that it was the reason that he'd been so easy to torture so successfully, that imagination that could envisage the worst things, magnify the pain, amplify the despair; that could put him so easily into another's feelings.

As a hunter, that imagination was a gift and a curse. It made thinking like the creatures he hunted simple. It made knowing what they did unbearable. Alastair's recognition of his potential in Hell had been based on seeing how good he'd been at torturing himself through it.

Now his imagination worked to flood his mind with images of what Ellie had endured, filling in the gaps that she'd left out of her narrative, providing the details. While he'd never doubted her strength and resourcefulness, he was still staggered by the dawning realisation of her will, which had driven her on, kept her going. In the same situation, most people would have died. Pure and simple. They wouldn't have known how to feed themselves, how to find the plants that would fight the infection, how to keep moving in one direction – the right direction – to find their way out of that harsh and perilous terrain, or how to deal with a storm, or the big predators that lived there. And that she had done so with the fixed idea of getting back to see him … he dragged in a deep breath, lifting his head to look at her.

She watched the river flowing past.

He let out his breath and got up, moving behind her and sitting again, his legs to either side of her, putting his arms around her and drawing her back to lean against him. He bent his head, pressing his lips against her neck. He wanted to know more about that trip, but he needed time, needed the time to let what she'd told him sink in.

"Question?"

"Mmm?"

"How do you do this? I mean, your parents, what you've seen, what you've done … how do you sit here by a river, calm and relaxed and listen to all my crap?"

Ellie smiled, picking up his hand and kissing the palm. "I don't hang on to stuff the way you like to. Life is change, it's fluid, mutable. People come and go. Believing in a better life after this one, or getting another shot at this one, helps too."

"So you don't mind when you lose people? Your friends? Your family?" He couldn't keep the disbelief out of his voice.

"Of course I mind. I grieve. I mourn them the best way I can. But then I hope and pray that they're happier on the next level, and I let them go," she said. "If it was someone that maybe I could have helped, or saved, or rescued, and I couldn't, then I tell them I'm sorry, and I try to atone for that mistake or misjudgement or whatever it was. But I don't do guilt, Dean. It's a pointless emotion, one that punishes without relief, without taking action to make things right, or let them go."

"Why are you with me?" he muttered peevishly against her ear. "You're too healthy."

"Maybe you're supposed to learn to be healthier?"

"I'm not convinced that I can." He looked past her, at the birds wading on the far bank. "I feel like every choice I've made, since I got Sam involved again, has been the wrong one. And there are so many of them now that I don't know where to start in looking at them, understanding them, figuring out what to do about them."

"Why do you think they were the wrong choices?"

"Because nothing good came of any of them." He shook his head tiredly. "Going to see Sam, before Jess was killed. What was that about? I didn't want to be alone? And look what happened?"

"According to Sam, he'd been dreaming of Jess' death weeks before it happened, Dean. And the demon who took over his friend, Brady, said that Jess was introduced to Sam purely to ensure that revenge for her death, her very specific death, would drive him back into hunting … so, whether you'd asked him to help you or not … she still would have been killed. And he still would have found you and started hunting again."

Dean was silent.

"What I'm saying is that a lot of the choices you're beating yourself up over, weren't actually the pivotal points in your life. From what you and Sam and Bobby have mentioned over the years, it seems that things would have gone pretty well along the same lines even if you'd died after the accident, or before that, when Sam found that faith healer."

She twisted around, looking at him. "Has it never occurred to you that you being around, the choices you've made and the actions you've taken were influenced by something else? Something that perhaps was helping you to ensure that evil didn't win out?"

"You mean God," he said flatly, looking at her, and then away again. He had lost the little faith he'd had in God when he been in the Garden, spoken to Joshua.

"You've been resurrected twice. You befriended an angel, and really, that's not that easy. You stopped the Apocalypse, you and Sam, and you did it through self-sacrifice, which is one of the highest virtues God acknowledges." She looked at him intensely. "You're really going to tell me that all these things count for absolutely nothing against your self-assessed list of failures?"

He looked down. "We let Lucifer out of his cage; I think that cancels out stopping the Apocalypse."

"Oh Dean, that's crap and you know it." Ellie snorted in exasperation. "You're just going to let Azazel, Uriel, Raphael, Alastair and Lilith off the hook, are you? They had nothing to do with it? It was just you and Sam to blame? Come on."

"Alright. How about something more personal?" he said quietly. He'd wanted to tell her everything the last time, but it had felt like they had no time. Actually, he'd wanted to spend the time they did have without talk, he corrected himself tersely. "How about I agreed to Sam's request and went to Lisa and Ben instead of trying to find you?"

She flinched slightly, both at the words and the self-loathing that riddled his voice.

"Dean, you've done the best you could. And I always knew you wanted a family."

"No, Ellie. What I told myself was that you had gone because you wanted to be gone," he said, remembering the craziness of his thoughts after Cas turned up at the house. He hadn't known what to believe, that she'd survived the attack by Raphael, that she hadn't. Over the following months, he'd become more and more convinced that she wasn't coming back.

"Cas wouldn't take me to you. He told me that you'd been clear about it and I should respect your wishes. When I was at the lowest point," he paused, feeling the rush of shame again at that memory. He took a breath and forced himself to tell her the truth. "And I tried to hand myself over to Michael – god, I needed you so much then. But I couldn't find you. Cas wouldn't. And I thought – I _decided_ – that meant that you didn't want me, us."

"We got closer and closer to D-Day, stopping Pestilence, meeting Death. I even asked him if he knew if you were alive or dead. He told me you were alive." He drew in a deep breath. "And that kind of confirmed it, at least in my head. You weren't coming back. You didn't want to found. You didn't want to be with me."

"Sam wanted me to get out of hunting, to live a normal life. He thought, like you did, that I wanted that. Maybe I did, but it didn't really work out the way I thought it was going to. What I really wanted was Sam back, was you back with me. That's _all_ I wanted. I did a lot of thinking over that year. I got a lot of things clear. One of them was that if I gave up hunting, then I was giving up on myself, the part that I'm proud of, at least. The other thing was that I'd given up on you."

"It wasn't the right choice, Ellie. I could have said no to Sam, and looked for you, told Cas as soon as it was over to take me to you. But I didn't."

"Sam would've known you were going to try to find a way to break him out, if you'd told him that you were going to try to find me," Ellie commented quietly.

"I didn't do it for Sam," his voice was suddenly low and bitter. "I did it because I was angry at you, for not being there when I needed you, because I thought you'd lied to me."

She closed her eyes. Within the lash of his anger at himself, was the truth of how he'd felt. Alone. Betrayed.

"Before I left Bobby's, Cas told me that for the last six months you'd had two angels on your tail the whole time. That they hadn't left you alone for a minute, that you'd been unable to lose them. I asked him to find you, and he couldn't see you. He said that one of the angels was dead. He also told me that you told him not to tell me, until Lucifer and Michael were locked away. "

She nodded slowly. "I didn't want you to get caught by Michael, not when he was growing more and more desperate."

"Yeah, but I didn't take that on, I didn't want to know why you'd stayed away. I just kept on telling myself that you didn't want to be there." He was shaking with anger at himself for that self-deception.

He still didn't know why he had been so sure that she'd chosen to stay away. He'd told himself that she'd stopped loving him or that she'd never loved him, that he was too broken for love, that she'd changed her mind. A part of him had believed it, had wanted to believe it, the part that thought that happiness was a weakness, a false hope he could never have. But a part of him had known that those things weren't true, had believed in her. He looked down at his hands, clenched into fists, and deliberately loosened them, breathing hard.

"Why didn't you come when I was at Bobby's? Before I left for Indiana?"


	6. Chapter 6 Power Out

**Chapter 6**

* * *

The sun was overhead. To the west a long, indistinct grey line of cloud announced the coming of a storm front. The breeze, light and warm in the morning was already backing and cooling. Ellie frowned as she noticed the change.

"I was in Oregon, in a nest of demons, courtesy of our pal, Crowley." She let out her breath softly. "At least the angels came in handy then."

She looked at him. "By the time I got to Bobby's it was too late. When I got to Cicero, it was November. I watched you for a couple of weeks. You looked happy. I left."

His eyes narrowed. He'd felt someone watching him in November, remembered the white pickup pulling out of the drive of the empty house, not rushing, just leaving. She'd been there then, seeing him with Lisa's family for Thanksgiving, seeing him with Lisa and Ben, his days settled in routine.

"Still think that was a good choice, Ellie?" he said wearily.

"If you hadn't gone there, you would always have wondered about the family life, Dean. You learned to trust again with Lisa and Ben. You learned more about yourself there than you ever could have otherwise."

"Not true. I would have done the same – quicker – with you."

"But it wouldn't have had the same impact." She moistened her lips, looking for the words. "You had to do it on your own. With me, you always get a lead, a way to go. I think it was vital that you spent that time learning to do it for yourself. Besides which, if you'd found me, we would have been spending all our time looking for a back door to the cage – not giving you time to heal yourself."

"It hasn't helped that much," he pointed out.

"It has. You're just too close to see it." She rested her head against his shoulder. "The nightmares you're having. They're not about Hell anymore, are they?"

"No," he acknowledged warily.

"What have they been about?"

He hesitated for a moment. "Cas, Sam, the Leviathans, the end of the world – again, the car … you."

On the river, the ducks suddenly all took off at once, quacking as they rose from the water. Ellie turned her head, feeling the breeze freshen against her cheek.

"We should get back." She rolled forward onto the soles of her feet, and stood. Dean got to his feet behind her. He looked at the line of cloud.

"Storm coming."

She nodded, and started to walk up the bank. Dean walked beside her, wondering if the coming storm was the only reason she'd shut down the conversation.

"You okay?" He glanced sideways at her.

"Yeah."

* * *

She wasn't, particularly. She'd told him the truth; he'd needed the year doing the suburban thing to get used to getting his own head straight. But it had brought back her memories of that time as well, which weren't all that fun. Had she gotten there a month earlier, she might not have let him be. But when she'd watched them together, she'd realised that he was building the life that he'd told her he wanted, the picket-fence life with a family. It had hurt. It had hurt so much she hadn't known what to do for a long time after leaving Indiana.

That he hadn't been as happy as it had appeared was news to her. Bobby had filled her in a little on what Dean and Sam had been doing through the year. She'd almost gone looking for him again when he'd told her that Dean and Lisa weren't seeing each other any more. Then he'd filled her in on Crowley's kidnapping, and Cas had told her the rest, omitting his connection with Crowley at the time. It had seemed to her that Dean was committed to his family.

She thought she'd gotten over it, when she'd seen him at Bobby's and they'd talked. She thought she'd understood that it had been bad timing, bad luck, all of that. Apparently she hadn't.

* * *

Dean watched her as they walked back to the motel, mostly obliquely, from the corner of his eye. She didn't look okay. In fact, he thought she looked very un-okay, her face closed in and expressionless, head bowed as if she were struggling with her thoughts.

He was reluctant to press her on it. She very rarely told him anything when he pushed, but sometimes if he left her alone to sort it out, she'd say something later. It had to be about the time he'd spent in Cicero, or about the nightmares, but he couldn't figure out which. He knew it must have hurt her, seeing him with Lisa. If it had been the other way around, he didn't think he could have dealt with seeing her with someone else, happy and settled.

Being with Lisa and Ben, he'd learned a lot about being in a relationship. It had been his first long term one. But at the same time, most of it didn't apply to being in this relationship. He'd never been able to be as honest with Lisa for starters. He'd never relied on her to see past his justifications, his rationalisations to the reason behind them, as he did with Ellie. She did lead him through his thoughts, his feelings, showing him the way out even when they were at their most chaotic, their most ugly. Sharing the domestic chores just didn't seem to mean much here.

* * *

They reached the motel as the leading edge of the front blocked out the sun. The wind was already gusting around them, and the temperature had dropped quickly. Behind the line of thinner cloud, Dean could see it piling up, the colours fading from white at the top through greys to a much darker charcoal underneath.

He closed the door against the wind. Inside the room was quiet; Ellie was sitting on the sofa, leaning against the back, her eyes closed.

"Tell me." He sat next to her.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. "Low blood sugar. I need something to eat."

He frowned, unsure whether to believe it or not. "I'll grab us some food before it gets too bad out there."

She nodded and sat up. "Thanks."

He picked up his keys and went out. A moment later she heard the deep throb of the Duster's V8 starting and the low rumble as he backed out and pulled away.

_Snap out of it_, she told herself angrily. _Feeling sorry for yourself is one thing when you're on your own, another thing when he's around, picking up on all your bad vibes._

Not that she'd been hiding them particularly well, but there was absolutely nothing to be gained from rehashing something that already happened, and had hurt them both anyway. And she had a suspicion that more than choice and free will had been involved here. Dean had needed that year, no matter how much that hurt, it was the truth. He'd learned a lot about himself in that time.

_Your decision to leave him there, not his, yours, so let it go right now_. She stood up and went into the bathroom, stripping down and turning the shower on. After a few minutes of standing under the hot water, she began to feel clearer, her throat loosening, the painful constriction in her chest fading away. She turned off the taps and stepped out, grabbing a towel and started drying. By the time she'd dressed in clean clothes and made herself a coffee, she could hear the Duster pulling into its slot. She turned on the television, switching channels until she picked up a weather broadcast for their area.

"This morning's forecast of mild storm activity has now been upgraded to severe storm activity in the north-east corner as two storm cells have merged. We are currently issuing warnings for residents to stay indoors, as the storms move across the state."

Dean opened the door, catching the last of the announcement. "Black as anything out there. I got lunch and dinner." He put the paper sacks down on the table and unpacked the nearer of the two.

On cue, thunder rumbled in the middle distance.

"Did you get candles?" Ellie asked, with a smile. Dean glanced at her, relieved to see the tension gone from her face, from her shoulders.

He pulled a handful of candles from the bag. "Think I've never been in a good storm? I was born in Kansas."

"I'll never doubt you again."

"Damn straight." He picked up the burgers and passed her one as he sat beside her on the sofa. "Did they say how long this is all supposed to last?"

She shook her head, enjoying the food.

"So …" He looked at her, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. "Stuck in a motel room for an indefinite length of time … what do you want to do?"

She snorted. "You bring a pack of cards?"

* * *

The storm took out the power two hours later. It was already as dark as night outside and they used the motel's saucers to set the candles in, spreading them around the room and lighting them.

Dean stood by the window, the curtain pulled aside slightly as he watched the rain pounding the ground, sluicing over the cars, swirling in rivers across the parking lot and overflowing the drains. Lightning flashed from the low clouds to the earth periodically, great crooked bolts that made the ground tremble with each hit. He let the edge of the curtain fall and looked around the room, lit by the golden glow of the candlelight. Ellie was sitting at the table, reading over her notes by the light of the three of the candles. Her hair was loose over her shoulders and back, gleaming brightly in the soft light.

He wondered briefly if he would ever tire of just looking at her. It was hard to when he saw her so little. He still didn't know how to change that. Even over the course of today he'd been subliminally aware that he was waiting for her phone to ring, to call her away again.

Things were going to hell. The death of Cas and the escape of the Leviathans. The impossibility of killing the things – at least in a way that didn't take three days and two tons of concrete. Worrying about Sam and the hallucinations – which had already aged him another ten years. Bobby's house. His lie to Sam. And the added complications of being on the run with their faces once again plastered over police stations and news rooms nationally. Of course, their deaths had been publicised. He didn't think that was going to help much. Joe Q recognised killers from years ago on America's Most Wanted.

He shrugged to himself and walked to the table, pulling out a chair and sitting opposite Ellie.

She looked up at him, her pen tapping lightly against the page. "I can't find anything specifically responsible for the reaction the Leviathans have to borax – or boron, or any of the other variations. It does create irritation in human skin, but the dose has to be pretty high. The Leviathans react even to a small amount." Her brow wrinkled as she tried to force a connection. "Unless their skin – or the oils in their skin – are a lot more sensitive than ours, it just doesn't make much sense."

"Nothing else has worked at all," he said, with a shrug.

"Well, the holy water and salt, no, of course not. They're not evil in the same sense as demons are, and they're not unnatural the way a spirit is or a monster, which is why iron works on them. God created them to live on the earth, as we do. The question is … out of what?"

Dean frowned. "They seem pretty damned evil to me."

"What they're doing is evil to us, but it's their nature to them. Like a cat playing with a mouse. The cat, and its behaviour, are not inherently evil. Only the results are – to the mouse."

"And somewhere there's got to be a way to draw them into a trap, into a cage to lock them away again," she mused, staring sightlessly at the wall. "Something."

"We should have asked Don more about that spell," Dean said thoughtfully. "That's the only thing so far that has stopped in their tracks. But at the time … it seemed a bit dicey to stick around."

Ellie looked back to him. "A spell worked on them? When?"

"That's how Bobby figured out about the borax. This witch's spell put one of them down for about three days. Bobby tried everything he could think of on it."

"Dammit, you didn't think to tell me that?" she snapped at him, swivelling around in her chair to pull her laptop from the bag. When she opened it, the soft beep-beep of a flat battery made her slam it shut.

Dean watched, half-bemused, half-defensive. "Sorry, it slipped my mind, must have been all the other crap that's been going on since then."

She glanced at him, her mouth tucking in at the corners as she stopped the smile. "Yeah, okay, sorry."

"You really want to work? All this candlelight? Power out?" He glanced at the bed suggestively.

"No. I'd like to come up with the answers while I sleep, but unfortunately this seems to be the only way it happens for me," she sighed, hearing the snarkiness. "I'm sorry. Something is nagging at me, some memory of something I've seen or read. I can't quite get it but it's got a big push to hurry attached to it. It's making me … anxious."

"I can help with that." He got up and walked around the table. "Look, the second the power is back on, you can look it up and get the answers you want. In the meantime, while you can't do anything that easy … maybe it's time to …"

He held out his hand to her. She looked down at the mess of books and notes over the table, then put her hand into it, getting up.

"What did you have in mind?" She smiled as he backed toward the bed, leading her after him.

"Guess."

* * *

"Lie down, let's get rid of the anxiety first."

She lay on her stomach, her smooth pale skin picking up golden highlights from the candlelight, twisting around to look over her shoulder at him.

"Is this a full service massage?"

"Better believe it." He grinned at her, climbing onto the bed next to her. His hands were warm and big and she sighed as he worked over her shoulders, probing gently at the muscles, his fingers gentle up the back of her neck and at the base of her skull.

She was almost asleep when he reached her lower back, drowsily aware that his breathing had changed, had deepened and quickened. The first touch was electrifying, and she bit her lip, lifting her hips a little higher, his hand sliding between her legs, thumb rubbing her gently as his fingers dipped into her a little. She turned her head to the side, moaning softly.

"Turn over," his voice was very deep, husky but not gentle. It was order, not a request.

She rolled over and looked at him. He pushed her legs apart, kneeling between them, and lowered his head, and she felt the softness of his tongue on her. She arched against him, lost in seconds as he brought her close, then stopped, starting again a moment later.

He did the same thing again. And again. By the third time, she was moaning helplessly and she bucked her hips against him, demanding release. He moved up her fast, one hand catching and holding both of hers at the wrists, stretched out above her head, his mouth taking her breast as he rubbed against her. She looked down at him, eyes open wide until the sensations he was generating intensified, her body tightening up as she came, then falling limply, and he slid into her, thrusting hard.

Ellie arched against him, struggling against his hold on her. He looked down at her, knowing that she was only using her strength against him, not her skill, not her knowledge. He had no doubt that he would be on the floor, probably injured, if she didn't want him there. He tightened his grip, going deeper, getting faster, watching her face as she looked back at him, her pupils dilated hugely and her breathing ragged. She was tightening him around, tremors beginning to run through her hips and legs, itch turning to ache then yearning as they got closer. He felt her legs wrap around his hips and sucked in a deep breath, as the molten heat inside of her began to ripple and throb around him, her eyes half-closing. He'd had some half-assed idea that he could ride it out, keep going, but his memories were outmatched by the reality and the sensations, of being held, of being squeezed, of being sucked, shoved him over the edge, his body shaking as helplessly as hers with the overpowering surge of pleasure that shot through him.

Leaning on one elbow, he released her wrists, and felt her arms wrap around him, holding him tightly, until the tremors and shivers slowly dissipated and their bodies were still again. He lifted his head, meeting her eyes, and bent to kiss her. He was careful not to move, he'd known for a while now that she wanted him to stay in her as long as possible, hating the moment when they were just two again, instead of one.

A few minutes later he lay on his back, his eyes closed, the images and feelings still slamming and ricocheting around his mind, around his body, making his pulse leap, his breath catch.

He'd always made love to women, even when he just having sex, it was what he did, it was how he connected, although he'd never imagined the way it would feel when there was a mental and emotional connection present as well. He wondered if it would ever get routine, feel … ordinary with the woman beside him. He didn't think so. The way she looked at him, the way she touched him … it went a long way beyond physical arousal, she turned on his mind, his soul, as much as she turned on his body. He had the feeling that wouldn't fade away, that maybe it couldn't fade away.


	7. Chapter 7 Paying What You Owe

**Chapter 7**

* * *

Ellie stretched out, lifting her arms up to the wall, extending her toes to the foot of the bed, every muscle lengthened to its furthest point. She relaxed again, pulling the covers over her as the warmth in her body began to dissipate. He'd surprised her, but it was a good surprise. In their life, when she was hunting, she couldn't afford to lose, to be defeated, but sometimes it felt like she needed it, especially with him.

Rolling over to face him, she felt a surge of love so powerful it seemed to stop her heart. She could count on the fingers of one hand the number of men she'd met whom she'd been attracted to. None had had anything like this effect on her. Perhaps it was a result of their patchwork history, the life of hunters, the danger factor … or just that she loved him more than she'd thought possible, she didn't know. She knew that she loved his impatience and anger as much as his gentleness and compassion, both of which he tried hard to keep hidden; his deliberate forays into his adolescent years as much as his astuteness when he was hunting or planning a hunt; the scars, inside and out … there wasn't a single thing she'd change about him. She knew he would figure out how to deal with the issues that had shaped him from childhood. She could offer suggestions, paths to follow, but it would be his doing, not hers.

He opened his eyes and his gaze met hers. He rolled onto his side, easing his arm around her, kissing her lightly.

"Were you watching me?" he asked, his smile holding a trace of smugness.

"Watching? I was gloating over you." She settled herself against him. "I've never seen a man so sexy in every possible way."

He laughed a little nervously. "Right."

She heard the edge of disbelief in his voice and sat up, looking into his eyes. "I'm not kidding."

He felt the familiar jolt between them. He knew that she wasn't. The knowledge seeped through him slowly, like groundwater heading for an aquifer. The feeling that it infused through him was a strange mix of love and gratitude, desire and hope. He didn't know why, but he found it soothing, reassuring.

"Why are you so resistant to the idea that Sam is healing, Dean?"

He blinked at the sudden change of subject. Not boring, nope.

"Uh … well, between Death and Castiel, I was pretty much convinced that I did the wrong thing by forcing Sam's soul back into him. And when Cas broke the wall in his mind, it all seemed to be happening, what they'd said would happen." He remembered confronting Sam in the warehouse, watching him in the cabin. "He wasn't with us, when he was hallucinating. I don't know what he was seeing, exactly. He told us that Lucifer was talking to him."

He shifted onto his side slightly, looking at her. "I can fix a physical problem, easy. But his mind? I can't even get my own under control. How was I supposed to help him?"

"But you did." Ellie looked at him. "You gave him exactly the right tool to tell the difference between what was real and what wasn't."

"Pain? Yeah. It sorts it out," he said softly. "But it doesn't heal."

"He only needed the ability to tell between the two, Dean. Once he knew it was a hallucination, he could deal with it. And for the mind, dealing with it is how it heals."

Dean was again aware that the answer was double-edged – an explanation for Sam and a warning for him. He looked at her.

"So that's what I have to do too?"

"Didn't Sam tell you that once you've paid what you owe, you move on? You don't keep mulling over the receipts. You can let them go."

"Well, without the store references, yeah, I guess that's what he was saying." He tried to smile.

"Why do you hang on?"

"I …" he stopped, not knowing the answer.

"You don't think you've paid enough?" She looked at him. "You think there's more on the bill?"

"Maybe. I guess." He looked down, thinking about it. "Some things, I don't think I can ever pay enough for."

"Why?"

"They're too big, Ellie. They went too far." He ran his hand over his face, rubbing his temple.

"Like?"

He closed his eyes. "Like breaking the first seal."

"Dean." Ellie touched his face lightly. "Look at me."

He opened his eyes slowly, reluctantly.

"There are three things that are needed to gain absolution. Contrition, atonement, forgiveness."

"Ellie …"

"You are sorry for breaking the seal. I know that." She looked at him. "And you have made atonement for it. You stopped the Apocalypse, fulfilled the prophecy, saved the lives of billions."

He looked away again, and Ellie put her hand to his face, turning it back to her. "God has forgiven you. I think Castiel made that clear. You're the only one left. You need to forgive yourself."

"I can't," he said, his voice thickening.

"You can. But you won't. Why?" She pushed at him, knowing he hadn't analysed the choice, knowing he'd accepted it and was carrying it without really understanding why.

"Because it was my choice to get off. My choice."

"To get off the rack, yes. To torture others? You knew you had to do it. But what were the consequences for you if you didn't?" This was the key point for him. He was used to taking responsibility, for things that were his to take … and for things that weren't.

"I'd be back on it," he allowed warily.

"Is that a free choice?"

Dean was silent.

"Dammit Dean, is that a free choice?" Ellie stared into his eyes, willing him to face up to it.

"No," he whispered, looking away from her, feeling something crumble inside of him. "Ellie, it's not enough. I might not have had a choice about the torture, but I had a choice about how I felt. I wanted to hurt them. I wanted to destroy them."

She looked at the tears that were filling the lower lids of his eyes, spilling over.

"You wanted revenge, Dean. For the pain you'd suffered, for the torment and the anguish and the despair. I told you, a long time ago, there are no innocent souls in Hell. Not even yours. Not even your father's."

He looked at her, brows drawing together. "That makes it alright? That I wanted payback and the souls I tortured and carved up weren't innocents?"

"It makes it different from what you've been telling yourself." She knew how he saw himself. She didn't know how to help him to change that view. "You're not evil, Dean. You didn't bring back evil with you. You're just human."

He rolled onto his side, away from her, his chest tight. "Why couldn't I have been as strong as Dad? Why am I so weak? Why did it have to be me?"

Ellie shifted against him, resting her cheek against the hard plane of his shoulder blade. "You're not weak, Dean. You weren't hardened inside and out by years of pain, years of regret and loss. You wanted to live. Your father knew he would die in his quest to kill Azazel. Knew it from the moment he first learned of the demon's existence, of its plan, I suspect. He didn't break because he made sure that he didn't want anything."

Under her cheek, her arm, Dean was completely still. She could feel the thud of his heartbeat against her breast, hard and fast. She could feel his tension in the muscles of his back, his shoulders, his arms, rigid under the smooth skin. She waited.

He remembered the moment Alastair had said the words. The way that they'd felt, as if the demon had ripped him into a thousand pieces and he'd been left as nothing, an empty husk. He remembered trying to convince himself that the demon was lying, that it couldn't be true, it couldn't be. But knowing, inside, that it was. Alastair didn't need to lie. The truth had torn his heart apart that day and Cas had been the only one who'd seen the effects of it. For the sake of what they had to do, for the sake of his brother, he'd buried his feelings … but not before they'd become welded to his soul.

He'd never felt quite good enough. Strong enough. Brave enough. Whatever. But from that moment, he'd hated himself, a poisonous venom in his veins that had distorted everything. He'd hated the weakness. He'd hated the knowledge that he hadn't become the man he'd wanted to be. He'd hated … everything.

Until … one night, he'd told someone everything, what had happened to him and how he'd felt and what he thought of himself … and she hadn't run, or turned away, she'd kissed him. And she'd told him that she loved him.

The poison had vanished. The feelings were still there, a part of himself, he thought, but the corrosive hatred had gone. He'd been able to see again, see that there was some hope, there was a chance for a future, maybe. When she'd disappeared, his hope had fled too. But the hatred hadn't come back.

He drew in a deep breath, and felt himself loosen a little. He'd begun to blame his father then, he realised. Blamed him for not breaking, for leaving his son to take the weight and the guilt and the shame of starting the end of the world in his place. He knew she was right. His father had loved them, but he'd welcomed death, had known he would die in the fight to kill Azazel. There hadn't been anything he'd wanted, except Yellow Eyes' death. Not life. Not love. Not even his family.

He knew what Alastair used to torture souls. The combination of emotional and physical torture, to open the mind, the soul, and turn it on itself. He knew because he'd done it too. His father had been immune to that kind of torture. The physical he could withstand. For John Winchester there had been no edges to hold emotional pain, the razor had had nothing to carve. He'd been smooth and uncaring and impervious to Alastair's modus operandi. His son, on the other hand, had cared too much.

He turned over, eyes still tightly shut, and felt her arms close around him, her lips kiss his forehead, found the hollow of her shoulder, curled against her, needing her warmth, her strength.

He'd always cared too much. About his mother. His father. His brother. He'd been brought up to care, to take responsibility, to protect even to death those in his charge. He didn't think of it, really, it just was … like the colour of his eyes. That caring … in Hell … had been his greatest weakness. Through it his soul had been flayed, his mind broken, his self torn apart and remade.

It had also, he realised now, been his greatest strength. He was a long way from being healthy, but he hadn't been remade, really. He'd withstood the decades of being tortured and torturing others with his soul intact. He still saw what was right. He still wanted to live, even when it didn't always feel that way. He still wanted love. Maybe more so now.

He opened his eyes, his arm tightening around her. "It's why I was forgiven, isn't it?"

Ellie felt tears rising behind her eyes as relief filled her. "Yes."

Outside, the bolt of lightning that hit the ground between the motel and the river was simultaneous with the clap of thunder overhead. They both jumped as the noise slammed the motel, the windows rattling, the light fittings shuddering.

They looked at each other as the thunder subsided.

"I thought you said that God didn't throw thunderbolts around anymore," Dean said softly.

"Sometimes, just like that, he'll change his mind," she whispered back, laughing a little as the tears spilled down her cheeks.


	8. Chapter 8 Confession

**Chapter 8**

* * *

The storm moved fast over them, the next roll of thunder a couple of seconds after the flash of the lightning. The sound of the rain of the roof, on the ground, on the trees, drowned out everything else.

Dean settled himself more comfortably. He felt strange, both wired up and deeply lethargic. The one thought kept recurring, a loop in his mind. _I feel like I did a lot of stuff I should have felt bad for, and then I paid a lot of dues and came out the other side_ … Sam's words, trying to explain.

Paying what you owe was a familiar concept for him. He'd paid, he knew it. From the depths of Hell to the towers of Heaven, he'd paid for what he got, and then some. He hadn't been blindsided, he'd known what he was doing, known the consequences, known that the end game would cost dearly, no matter which way it went.

Was it the responsibility thing, which kept him from considering that the debts were settled? It was, unquestionably, the single most powerful force in what made him the way he was, nature or nurture, he didn't know which was dominant, likely they were even.

A line from a horror novel, read last year in his suburban dream, floated through his mind … _"You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for... and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you."_

That was how he felt. Owned by the things he'd paid for. Surrounded by them, sometimes drowned by them. Always held by them.

It was crazy, right? It should have been the other way around, once paid for, he should have been able to jettison them, let them go and get on with the new things. But they came home, alright. And they huddled around, and he couldn't get his mind clear of them, couldn't rid his heart of them.

Guilt might have been a pointless emotion, but for him it was the way he interacted with the world. He knew the importance of things, the value of things, by the level of guilt he felt about them. As he'd said to Jo, the night her spirit had come to kill him, he was ninety percent crap, it didn't leave much left. He'd wanted to die; he'd been ready to die. It had been a selfish desire, to be out of the game for good, give up the fight, throw in the towel, just be done with it. He hadn't been thinking of Ellie, or Sam, or Bobby when he'd told Jo to go ahead. Just himself.

He felt guilty about that now. Ashamed. Another layer of self-loathing to add to the rest. What kind of person wants to throw it all away because they haven't dealt with the crap in their lives? Who burns down the house because it hasn't been cleaned in a while? Someone like him.

He hadn't had a drink in two days and his head was clear. It wasn't the responsibility driving him, he realised slowly. It was the way he felt about himself. The way he _still_ felt about himself. The revelation of what he'd done with the feelings after Alastair had told him about the seal was still reverberating in his mind. What would it take before he believed what she believed about him? He looked down, seeing her ribs rise and fall softly.

She knew everything about him, pretty much. All the worst things. All the things that he kept in the dark, tried not to think about, not to look at. And it hadn't changed how she'd felt. She'd told him that God didn't care about the end results either, only about the striving, the journey.

What did that feel like? To see a life that was filled with mistakes, with failed attempts, and to know that the person who lived it had only been doing the best they could under all those circumstances. He shook his head. Just a few times, he'd like to be able to see some definitive wins when he looked back.

He needed to square things with Sam. He knew that much. Why he'd done what he'd done, and why he'd lied to his brother about it.

* * *

By morning, the storm had gone. Broken trees, leaves, branches, and rubbish were strewn about the wet streets, and the sound of flowing, gurgling water was present everywhere, but the sky was a clear pale blue again.

The power was still out at the motel, so they took the Duster out into the farmland in the morning, just driving, listening to music sometimes, talking sometimes. At noon, Dean saw a narrow gravelled road leading toward the river, and pulled into it, trundling over the pot holes and ruts between thick trees, until they emerged a couple of miles in at the river's edge, in a wide clearing.

Ellie got out, stretching her legs, and walked to the bank, watching the storm flow boiling past. The water was turgid, brown, filled with debris. Even as she watched it, the water cut a little more from a hollow along the far bank, sweeping the soil and grass along downstream.

She turned and walked down a narrow path, following the river until she came to a willow, standing back from the edge, its branches arching out over the river, the delicate tendrils being dragged along by the speed of the water. She sat on a damp log and looked at it. It was probably around a hundred years old, she thought. Not bad to have survived that long. Dean sat next to her, looking at the river.

"All that power," he said, marvelling at it. Nature impressed him, always had.

"Spring cleaning." Ellie looked at the water. "Getting rid of whatever is in the way, clearing the path for next season."

Dean looked down at his hands. A part of him didn't want to talk about this; it was sounding a low warning in his mind. But he hadn't held anything back from the woman beside him, and he wanted, no, _needed_ her to know. "There's something I didn't tell you, about the judgement business with Jo."

She looked at him. "Oh?"

"When Jo's spirit came to kill me, I didn't try and stop her," he stopped, rubbing his eyes absently as he tried to find the words to describe it, that night, that despair. "She didn't want to do it, Osiris was making her but it didn't matter to me at the time. I didn't try and fight. I just stood there, waiting. I wanted to die, in a way it was kind of a relief that it would be Jo doing it, evening the score."

Ellie looked away, her heart stuttering slightly in her chest. She knew the weight of what he carried around. Every death, every failure, every tear. The fact that he didn't have to carry it was irrelevant. He did carry it.

But she'd never thought he'd want to give up – give up on Sam, on her, on his life. She had thought that he wanted to find a way to shed those burdens, to be free of them, so that he could live … and love. It came slowly to her that perhaps that wasn't really what he wanted.

Dean looked at her, seeing only the quarter profile of her face as she watched the river. He bit down on his lower lip nervously as the silence grew.

"Ellie?" he said tentatively, leaning out to see her expression.

She could feel the tightness in her chest, in her throat, getting worse. If she didn't speak soon, she wasn't going to be able to get the words past.

"So you wanted to give up." She heard the flatness of her voice. She couldn't look at him, not now. She felt … afraid, of what she might see.

He heard it too, frowning. "I guess I did. Sam didn't, he killed Osiris, so obviously it didn't happen."

She closed her eyes. She'd spent six months struggling through mountains and forests, injured and alone, with winter coming down fast because she'd wanted to be with him so badly. He'd thrown in the towel when faced with one ghost, a beloved ghost maybe, but still just one ghost because he wanted it to end.

"If you wanted to give up, why didn't you just stay with Lisa?" Her voice held a lash of pain in it now. "If this life is so unbearable, there are a lot of things you can do to put yourself into harm's way."

He blinked, hearing the pain behind the anger, and the words, but not really taking them in. Then they sank through and he realised what he'd said, and how it had been interpreted, and he felt his heart shrivel inside his chest at what he'd just done.

He heard his words again, this time from an outside perspective, from her perspective, or Sam's, or even Bobby's. He'd wanted, needed, to be honest, but he'd been thinking about himself.

"Ellie, I know it was selfish –"

"Selfish?" Her breath caught on a sob. "Selfish? That's the understatement of the year. Did you spend even a half a second thinking on what it would do to Bobby or to Sam to have to bury you again?"

She couldn't begin to go into what it would have done to her. When he'd been killed by the hellhounds, it had been more than she could bear, and that was with the knowledge that somewhere, somehow, there had to be a way of bringing him out.

"I wasn't thinking like that – everything that Osiris had said, it wasn't true to the letter, but it was true in intent," he tried again, tried to find the words to make it understandable.

"Don't talk to me about truth, okay?" she snapped. "You don't have the faintest idea of what the truth is."

She stood up abruptly and started walking, away from the car, away from him. Her heart was hammering and her vision was blurring as her eyes filled with tears. _Wanting to die?_ _What about me_, her thoughts screamed in her head. _What about us?_ She stumbled over a branch that lay across the path, kicking at it in sudden fury.

Dean stayed on the log for a moment, shock slowing his thinking, his reflexes. What the hell had happened? What had he done? He realised that she was disappearing up the wooded path along the river, and got up, starting to run as she vanished around a curve.

She heard the snapping of twigs and vegetation behind her and stopped, wiping her hand over her face. Her head was starting to throb from holding back her pain, from not looking at it.

Dean slowed as he came upon her. "Ellie, wait. I just wanted you to know what happened …"

He walked up to her. "I know it was a crappy thing to do, okay? I know that."

"No, you don't know, Dean. Everyone has been fighting so hard for you, gone through so much – and this, this … you just negated all of it. If Sam hadn't gotten to Osiris in time, and Jo had killed you …" she trailed off. Who would have told her? Sam, or Bobby maybe. If they'd been able to reach her, to find her.

She walked away from him, almost pacing in her rage and fear. "And Sam? You thought Sam was going nuts? Over a few hallucinations? But you give up completely and let someone kill you, and that's okay?"

Dean flinched at the words strafing him. "I know. I know, okay, I know. I wasn't thinking straight, I was head-to-foot guilt –"

"I really believed you – all that talk about how worried you were that I was going to leave you. And then this? You weren't just going to leave, Dean. You wanted to check out for good. That tells me a lot about how you really feel right there."

"Ellie. That's not what I was thinking." He watched her, his heart hammering as he saw where she was going with her train of thought. _No_. Christ, how had they gotten to here so fucking fast?

"Oh, really?" She spun around and strode to him. "Then tell me how you thought I was going to be, hearing from Sam or Bobby, that a spirit had killed you. That you wanted to die – not live, not be with me – but die."

He licked his lips, not sure of how to answer that. "I didn't … I wasn't thinking about it like that. Everything seemed to set in concrete. I was tired of fighting it all. I …"

"You didn't think of me at all, did you?" She looked at him. "Or Sam. Or anyone who loves you. You just wanted to give up and not feel so guilty anymore."

He bowed his head. That was exactly what his thoughts had been. For some reason, the memories, seeing Jo again, the accusations … they'd combined to drown out his reason, even his feelings for the people he loved, the people he knew would suffer … as if those memories had been wiped clean.

"You're a lot worse than Sam has ever been, Dean. Sam would keep fighting. Once, you would have too. I can't see that in you any more."

Her words cut into him like a knife. He could feel her pulling away from him.

"I can't do this, Dean." She took a deep breath, trying to fill her lungs. "You won't help yourself, heal yourself. And I can't wait around for a phone call saying that you've given up again and have found a way to die. I can't. I won't."

She walked past him, and he gripped her arm. "It's not like that, that's not what happened."

She looked down at his hand. "Yes, it is like that, Dean. I've watched you on this roller-coaster for a long time."

"No," he insisted, his fingers closing more tightly around her arm. "I've let go of a lot of crap. You helped me do that. I'm getting better at it, but I can't do it without you."

She looked at him for a long moment. "You're going to have to."

He let go of her slowly. "Why?"

"Because I love you. And knowing that you might decide that it's all too hard, and get yourself killed –," she stopped, unable to say it, shaking her head.

"I won't, it won't happen again." He looked at her disbelievingly. "You said you couldn't leave."

"You told me you loved me," she countered, her voice trembling. "And then you told me that you were ready to die, that you stood there and waited for it."

"Don't, don't leave. Please. Ellie, this is all fucked up, it's not the way I – I don't – please." He knew he was pleading. He didn't care. It wasn't possible that this was happening, not now.

"You'll get further without me." She walked away. "If you do, then you'll know how to find me."

"Ellie, goddammit, wait, wait a second, I'll take you back in the car." Dean called out as she walked away from him, along the path.

He could see the shake of her head before she rounded another curve and disappeared into the woods.

He stared after her. How had he not seen that the confession would have this effect? To him, it had been a mistake, a result of the guilt and the tiredness from the guilt, but a one-time thing. He didn't feel that way now. He cursed himself briefly. Now he could think of logical arguments to what she said; where the hell had they been five minutes ago? Turning, he started to walk fast back to the car; he could catch up with her on the road and explain.

* * *

He reached the car and got in, turning around in the narrow space and heading back for the road. After ten minutes of driving along the narrow country roads, he admitted to himself that he wasn't going to find her on the road. She must have gone across country, cutting off miles through the woods and fields. He pushed his foot down and headed back to the motel.

* * *

Ellie followed the river path for ten minutes, then cut through the woods and crossed the train line, finding another trail leading in the right direction on the other side. Her sense of direction was good, and she wasn't worried about getting lost.

Once she was sure he wasn't following, she let the grief come. She found it impossible to imagine what he'd been thinking to be able to do that. Had he really taken so little in, in everything they'd talked about over the years, that his guilt had overwhelmed everything else? The shock of hearing him say it, in a matter-of-fact tone, that he'd almost destroyed her life as well as his own … and apparently hadn't considered that at all, robbed her of her strength.

She stopped for a few minutes, sitting in the long grass and letting the pain wash through her. It was better than holding it in, holding it back. She knew that he'd always been ready to die. The fact that he was still alive was more of a result of the efforts of others than his own. And she knew that a part of him had wanted to die, at times, to cut off his feelings, to shut down his guilt. But she'd really thought that he'd dealt with that. Maybe she'd been wrong. She shook her head impatiently. Obviously she'd been wrong.

It didn't stop the pain, crawling through her body, into every crack and crevice, settling in there and bleeding her from the inside out.

She got up reluctantly, tempted to lie down in the grass and sleep, escaping it that way. But that was an impossibility.


	9. Chapter 9 The Power of Gods

**Chapter 9**

* * *

Ellie reached the motel just after four, tired and heartsick and with a pounding headache. She couldn't see the Duster in its slot but as she came around the shaded corner of the building, she noticed that the door to their room was not hanging straight. She stopped instantly, drawing closer to the building, to the deeper shadow, her feelings, emotional and physical, shunted away as she switched automatically into hunting mode.

She had no weapons on her. She moved her head slowly until she could see the parking lot and the building. There was no cover between her and her truck either. After a moment's consideration, she backed along the side of the building, breaking into a run as she slipped around the corner. She headed for the rear of the building. Each room had a picture window and a bathroom window facing the river. Thankfully the sun was low on the other side now; she would be able to look in without being seen by anyone on the inside.

From the next corner, she counted the windows until she came to their room. Crouching beneath the window sill, she eased her head up slowly, and looked through the corner of the window, where there was a small gap between the curtain and the window frame.

The room was trashed. As her eye slowly adjusted to the dimness of the interior, she could see that every piece of furniture had been reduced to matchwood, everything else just to pieces.

She slid down the wall, leaning against it. No one had been visible in there, although they could conceivably have hidden in the bathroom or the closet, waiting for them to open the door. But they'd been gone almost all day. She ran doubled-over for the further corner. If she could slip through the longer grass beside the path to the river, she could make it to the truck, parked at the river side of the lot.

She had just made the grass when she heard the distinctive rumble of the Duster coming up the street. She gave a small sigh of relief, working her way quickly to the truck. When it nosed into the drive, she flashed her high beam for a microsecond. The flash caught Dean's eyes and he turned his head.

She thought for a long moment he would still pull in front of the room. But he turned slowly and drew up beside her, turning the engine off. She slipped out of her door and crouched beside his.

"What is it?" He looked down at her, brows drawn together.

"Someone's trashed the room. I'm not sure if they're still there or not. Are you carrying?"

He shook his head and took the .45 and the pump shotgun she handed him through the window. Ellie made her way to the front of the car, as Dean eased out of the driver's side and followed her. They worked their way back to the building and walked along the concrete sidewalk that fronted the rooms.

She pushed the door wide, and was in and to the right of the doorway in a second. She crossed the doorway as Dean came in behind her, checking behind the open door, and then they both checked first the closet, and then the bathroom. The room was empty.

Dean lowered his gun, and looked around the mess. Ellie's laptop and notebooks had been swept from the table. The laptop was smashed, the notebooks and the research she'd been working on had been slashed and crumpled. She looked around for her backpack. It lay on the floor near the sofa like a dead beast, sliced open and emptied all over the floor surrounding it.

"What do you think? One of the Leviathans?" She looked at him.

He nodded. "They're the only ones on our tails right now."

He noticed that his gear bag was gone. He had a few items in the trunk of the Duster but his preferred weapons had all been in the bag. He swore softly under his breath.

"Anything you want to salvage from this?" He turned and asked her. She shook her head. She'd miss the backpack; it had been with her for a long time. But she could replace everything else. Even her notebooks were updated to the laptop and transferred to her home computer as often as possible. It didn't look like anything had been taken, but if they'd read the notes first … she grimaced, realising she might have just made the roll call on humans that the Leviathans were after. She stared at the debris on the floor. She had learned long ago not to carry anything of a personal nature, not in her bag, not in her car. They might have some information on her, but they wouldn't have much. Another thought occurred to her.

"Did you give the motel the Duster's details when you checked in, Dean?" She looked around her.

"Yeah." His brows drew together in frustration. He liked that damned car.

"Get everything out of it." She started for the door. "We'll go in mine."

* * *

In two minutes they were on the highway, heading north. The backseat had several canvas bags on it, the sum total of Dean's possessions at this time. He sat in the passenger seat, restless, unsure of what to say.

Ellie drove, her eyes on the road, sunglasses hiding her expression.

"Either they managed to track you somehow, or more likely they've cottoned on to the fact that we know each other, and traced me," she said quietly.

Dean nodded noncommittally. It could be either.

"Where do you want to go?" she asked him, her voice carefully neutral.

"It doesn't matter. I've got to get another car, so maybe any bigger town we come across," he said, looking at her profile.

He wasn't so sure now that he could explain himself well enough to make any difference to her. For the last half hour, working together to get out of there reasonably clean, he'd managed to forget what had happened before. Now it came crashing back and he was afraid that as soon as they reached somewhere that was moderately safe, she would go.

"We'll cross into New York then." She'd heard the change in his voice, the doubt. She'd been waiting for him to say something.

"About before, Ellie," he started tentatively. "It wasn't on ongoing thing. I don't know why it happened like that, but I haven't felt that way since."

Ellie stared at the road. "Dean, right now, I feel as if I don't know you at all. That terrifies me."

He closed his eyes, knowing he deserved that but wishing it wasn't true. "I would give anything, Ellie, anything at all to be able to make it all different."

Famous last words, he thought bleakly. He'd give anything to have changed a lot of things. He couldn't wish any of them away.

"But you can't," she said, following his own thoughts.

"No." He sighed. He thought of that moment, when Sam had left, and he'd poured the salt around himself in a circle. Told Jo to come out. It was as if all the light in the world had died at once. He'd been in darkness.

He'd known despair before, the grey fog that stole all hope, all possibility for the future. It hadn't been like that. No matter how deep his despair had been over the years, he'd never given up, never forgotten the people he loved, his responsibility to them. He'd been getting worried about Ellie, that he couldn't contact her, that she should have been back, but he hadn't thought that she had died. That was about the only reason he could really think of to want to die the way he had. And even then, he knew, if he lost her, he would have kept going for Sam, for Bobby.

He frowned, trying to remember exactly how it had felt. The crushing weight of guilt. The desire to let it all end. His lack of thought about anyone else. Just himself. Just his failures, his losses.

Something Osiris had said in the courtroom … _"People want to be judged. They really do. When your heart's heavy, let me tell you, real punishment's a mercy."_

_Real punishment_. Not repentance, not contrition, not atonement. But a life for a life. His eyes narrowed slightly as he tried to remember how Warren had seemed. He'd done his time. He should have felt that he'd paid. Thirty years. But he'd gone out of the circle, gone to the spirits who'd killed him.

He pulled his phone out and looked at it. "Think I can use this without calling their attention?"

Ellie glanced over. "I don't know. But we're moving. If you chuck it after the call, then maybe."

Dean nodded, hitting Sam's speed dial number.

The call went to voicemail. He swore. He called Bobby.

"Bobby, hey." He stared out the window. "Can you check on something for me? Uh huh. Osiris – did he have any power to increase a person's guilt, after they'd been judged? To make it worse, so that they wouldn't run? Yeah. Oh, and get back to me on Ellie's number; I have to ditch this one. Okay."

He closed the phone and opened the window, throwing the cell out beyond the long grass of the verge.

"You think that your feelings were … amplified by something Osiris did?" Ellie asked, a small line between her brows.

"I don't know," he admitted. "But the whole thing, it felt different." He looked at her, shrugging slightly. "I'm pretty used to feeling bad. This didn't feel like any other time. It wasn't that it felt worse, it felt a _lot_ worse. Like the only thing that made any sense at all was to die." He looked down. "And I didn't think of anyone else. Not you. Not Sam. Not Bobby. Just that it felt that I should die."

Ellie's hands clenched on the wheel as she considered the implications. "It would be a way to ensure that the judgement was passed. A lot of people would rethink their innocence in the face of the death, would run, unless something took away their will, their desire for life."

She glanced at him. "He's an old god. Life was simpler back when."

"Yeah. No forgiveness." He closed his eyes, leaning back against the head rest. It was an explanation.

* * *

Bobby called back two hours later. They'd crossed the state line and were heading north. Ellie pulled her phone from her jacket pocket and passed it to Dean.

"Yeah … right … thanks, Bobby." He closed the phone. "There was nothing concrete written down about it, but there were hints that he could control the people he'd judged, increase their feelings of guilt, possibly alter their memories, to make sure that the punishment was accepted."

He leaned back, relief trickling through him. He'd been under a spell – of sorts – not just giving up and laying down of his own accord. He hadn't realised how poisonous that thought had been until it was gone.

"That's good," Ellie said.

"Yeah." He looked over at her. "Does it make a difference to you?"

"Of course it does," she said softly. "Thinking that you could just give up everything without any regret, without thought …" She shook her head. "It didn't fit with what I know of you, it didn't fit with anything you've said. I thought … I thought it meant that I didn't know who you were, that I would never know who you are."

"Yeah." He nodded. "I understand."

"Dean," she said a few moments later. "You know that guilt comes from thinking that you could have done something different, from regretting something you've done."

He hadn't really thought about it. But he could see that it would. "Yeah?"

"I'm wondering how many of the things that you feel guilty about, are things that you don't really regret doing, that if you had the time again, you would still do the same way because that was the only way?"

He thought about it. He had a lot of regrets. But when it came down to it, they were regrets that events had happened at all – they weren't because he'd thought of a better way to do something since. Sam's death and his deal. He couldn't – he wouldn't – have done anything differently there, even knowing what he knew now. Castiel. Lisa and Ben, even … all the choices he'd made, whether they had worked out or not, he'd made them because there hadn't been a better alternative, most of the time not even with hindsight.

He stared at the road unfurling ahead of them, the white lines lit by their headlights as they sped through the darkness, thinking through his past.

* * *

They came into Cornell just after midnight, and Ellie slowed down as Dean looked around the empty, silent streets.

"That'll do." He pointed to the lit motel sign to the right. She nodded and turned in, pulling up in front of the office.

"I'll be back in a moment," she told him, getting out of the car. She carried a small envelope. It held a driver's licence, credit card and false registration papers for her car. None had been used before.

Dean looked around the parking lot. It was quiet, barely a half dozen cars filling the slots in front of the rooms. No lights, not even the flicker of light from a television, showed in any of the windows. He felt bone-tired but awake, preoccupied with his thoughts on the nature of regret and guilt, buoyed up by the relief that he'd been under a spell rather than the alternative when Jo's spirit had come for him. He wondered how he could have missed the obvious conclusion.

Ellie came out of the office and got back in the car. She tossed him a key and started the engine, pulling slowly around the office and down to the line of rooms that were at the back, unseen from the street.

She pulled up in front of the room, and they got out, taking bags from the back seat. Dean opened the door and pushed it wide, following Ellie inside.

The room was clean, a queen sized bed taking up most of the space. At the sight of the one bed, Dean let out the breath he hadn't realised he was holding. He dumped his bags next to it, and lifted one on to the end, unzipping it and lifting out the ordnance it carried. When they'd left, he'd just thrown everything into the bags. He needed to know what he had, and what he'd lost.

Ellie dropped her bags next to the sofa and walked into the bathroom. She stripped quickly, and stepped into the shower, washing the doubts, tension and fear from the last twelve hours away. She smiled a little, remembering the relief on his face as he'd realised he'd been under the influence of the Egyptian god when he'd gone so readily to die. Her own relief had been no less. The thought of him giving up, the painful decision to leave him to it, it had felt like having a butcher's knife taken to her heart and great chunks carved out of it. She tipped her head back under the hot spray, rinsing the shampoo out of her hair. She couldn't take another scare like that one.

Sitting at the table, watching the late news and combing out her hair, she thought unhappily about what to do next.

Dean came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, hair damp and sticking up. He sat next to her, and watched her as she finished combing.

"What now?"

"I have to get back to Virginia," she said, dividing her hair into three sections and plaiting them quickly. "It's possible that they got enough information to locate my place, and I need to get everything out as fast as I can and get settled somewhere else."

"Okay, I'm on board." He nodded.

"No." She looked up at him, twisting the tie to secure the plait. "If they have found out about it, then it could easily be a trap."

"It could be a trap for you too," he said uneasily. He didn't want her to go. "And if they know anything of us, then they could grab you to get to me and Sam."

She nodded. "But by myself, I can be sneaky. With you there as well, it's much harder. I think that all they can have on me is the cell number. No description, no pictures, no way of knowing me on the street." She looked at him wryly. "They know what you look like, Dean, they can pick you out easily, because you don't know them."

Dean stared at the table top, reluctant to agree with her. He knew what her arguments were. And he knew that she was right.

He looked up. "I don't like it. For the record."

"I know. But it's the only sensible way to do it." She smiled at him, knowing that he would worry. She would worry about him too. It was the way it was. "And I have to get the stuff out of my apartment. I'll be careful."

"You better be," he said. "How long till you're set up somewhere else?"

"I don't know. I'll change states. I'll probably just stick most of it into a few storage places until we can get a better handle on these things."

"You really think we'll find something to stop them?"

"Oh yeah, eventually. Nothing's invincible," she hesitated for a moment as a thought caught at her. "There's something I'm missing, there's a reason to hurry and I can't quite get it."

"They're out there killing people, that's a pretty good reason," he said sourly.

"Yeah, but that's not it." She shook her head. "Frustrating. But I guess it'll come."

She stood up, and walked to the bed, turning back the covers. "I'm done."

He nodded, turning off the television and the lights and following her.

"You're going in the morning?" he asked quietly when she lay against his side.

"Yeah. I have to. There are far too many irreplaceable things at my place." She looked up at him. "Are you going to be alright?"

He was about to say that sure, he'd be good. Then he stopped. "Not as good as I'd be if you were staying, but yeah, I'll be all right."

She shifted against him slightly, her thigh sliding along his. He smiled, feeling another rush of relief that there'd been an explanation for his death wish, that he wasn't alone now.

"How tired are you?" he asked softly, rolling onto his side to brush her lips with his.

"Not that tired."

* * *

Dean woke alone in the bed. He'd slept deeply, not hearing her leave. He looked around and saw the note on the nightstand. He picked it up, rubbing his eyes as he opened it.

_Didn't want to wake you. For now, if anything important comes up I'll leave a message on this forum for you._

_InsectLoversDailyForum_

_I've set up the account there. User ID lepidopterist109. Password 3274barrel._

_I'll be as fast as I can. I love you._

_Ellie_

He grinned at the password, and then stretched out. He was missing her already but at least they had an open line of communication now, one that wouldn't be affected by Leviathan tracking abilities.

He put an arm behind his head, and looked up at the ceiling, thinking about the last few days. He'd told Sam that he felt guilty about everything, responsible for everything. It had been a joke, but not really. It was a contradiction because as soon as his family was involved, he stopped feeling guilt and remorse and responsibility. He remembered Meg Masters, the girl who'd been possessed by a demon and had come after Dad, for the Colt. He hadn't felt a shred of remorse for her death … at least not until years later, when her spirit had risen to confront him. Even then, he thought, it was only because she'd appeared that he'd thought of her again. There was something wrong with that. Something wrong with the way he was dealing on two separate levels, as if the rules for each were different somehow.

He'd thought that everything had come down to the seal. Breaking it had set off the chain reaction that had dominoed out of control and destroyed almost all their friends, broken the trust between him and Sam, ultimately destroyed his friendship with Cas … but Ellie had been right about that. Breaking the seal had been a part of a much larger plan. The only thing he'd been was … human. Wanting to stop the torture. Wanting to stop the pain. Wanting to live. It sat uneasily in him, to let that one go. Especially when he looked at the consequences. He didn't really want to think about his father either. The two things were entangled, his feelings about one affecting the other. He pushed it away.

What really bothered him was the Osiris thing. He hadn't connected the dots earlier. He'd nearly lost Ellie because it hadn't occurred to him how bizarre and out of character that had been for him. He rolled onto his side, feeling his breathing quicken as the memory of the riverside rose again. He hadn't seen it at all, until he'd seen it through her eyes, seen the devastation in her face. How was that possible? He'd felt guilty about Jo and Ellen's deaths, despite the numerous conversations he'd had with Ellie, with Sam, with Bobby, about the choices of others. But he never would have died for that guilt, never would have left Ellie, or his brother … deliberately like that.

Jo hadn't exactly forgiven him, but then maybe she hadn't realised that he needed her to forgive him. Maybe she hadn't realised that he'd taken the blame for her death, for Ellen's death, on himself. He'd told Ellie that he thought she'd chosen to be there freely. All this time, carrying the burden of guilt for her, when Jo had never seen it that way. He shook his head. He had too many fucking screws loose.

He sat up, throwing back the covers and rubbing his hands over his face, as if he could rub away his memories, his thoughts. He got lost in them, that was the problem. When he tried to think through all this crap on his own, he got lost in it and he couldn't tell if he was on the right path, or if he was headed out to left field. He thought of the way Ellie had drawn him back, time after time, to what he needed to think about, what he needed to realise. It was possible, he knew, to get his head straightened out when she was here. When she wasn't … it was a mess and he couldn't even work out what was important, and what was just junk. And now she was gone again. Not for long, he hoped. But gone was gone.

He stood up and walked into the bathroom. He'd just have to keep going as well as he could. There wasn't another choice.

* * *

Two hours later, he was eating breakfast from Fat Mack's and looking around for a ride. He pulled out his phone, pressing a button. The screen said No Messages. He sighed, putting it back in his pocket. He saw the Challenger ahead and stopped beside it.

_Nice_.


	10. Chapter 10 Where I Belong

**Chapter 10**

* * *

There are times when I drink too much. I mean … way too much. I know that. I tell myself it's to numb the pain, or to forget about the failures, or even to just have fun once in a while. But those are the lies I tell other people so they don't work all that well on me. Not entirely lies, but not the whole truth. I need to forget, and I need the numbness and god knows I need some help getting clear of the despair from time to time. But mainly I drink to take away the responsibility that sits on me like a concrete overcoat and that I can handle for so long and then not anymore.

The woman sitting across the small table knows it. I don't know how, it's not like I told her about this need, this sometime-compulsion. She knows me. In fact, it's a constant fucking surprise to me just how well she knows me. It takes me time to figure out why I do the things I do, sometimes longer than others – she knows why straight away. She'll smile slightly, the corners of her mouth tucking in, the dimples deepening and I'll know that she's already figured it out.

She's not really pretty. Her colouring's too vivid, her features are striking, the scars that cross her skin are fine but still obvious. She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. And when she smiles … I look for that smile all the time, and I feel like I'd be okay with dying straight after I've seen it.

The bar we're sitting in is not big. It's kind of crappy-looking, kind of lived-in. Two hours ago it was full, but now there are only few people left, finishing their drinks, packing up their stuff. The bartender is watching me, probably wondering if I'll be able to stand when she calls for closing. And on the other side of the table, Ellie waits patiently, knowing I want to close it out, that small smile still curving her lips.

My head's pounding already. Self-inflicted, I started the evening with tequila, had a craving for shots and lemon and salt. Then I switched to whiskey a couple of hours later. Smart people don't mix spirits if they can avoid it. Especially light and dark ones. Especially, specially not tequila and whiskey. Guaranteed trouble not too far down the line.

"Okay folks, time to close. Finish your poison and get the hell out of my bar." The bartender looks around the room, her gaze zeroing in on me, for some reason.

"You about done?" Ellie asks me quietly. I look down at the glass next to my hand. There's a little left at the bottom. I nod to her, watching as she gets up, and offers me her hand.

"Let's get you home."

I lean on her a bit, shifting my weight from chair to feet and floor. Watch the muscles leap smoothly in her shoulders and arms as she counterbalances my slight sway. Discreetly. She's not big, maybe five five, five six at the most, and slender, all whipcord muscle over bone. But she's strong. Weight for weight I think she's probably stronger than I am. You should see her fight – it's awesome, like watching a cat, fast and accurate and scary as hell if you're on the receiving end.

She steps close to me and tucks her arm through mine, walking slowly to the door and matching her stride to mine, pretending that I'm supporting myself, that I'm not listing to the right and half-leaning on her.

"Don't breathe deeply when you hit the outside air," she reminds me softly and opens the door, pushing me through first. I take shallow breaths and my feet stutter down the three steps outside of the door, before I can catch the railing and anchor myself. The night air is freezing, and our breath is white as it leaves the warmth of our lungs and throats. Ellie moves close to me, ducking under my arm and draping it over her shoulders. The motel is about three blocks away and we walk – well, she walks and I weave – slowly down the street toward it.

"Why … Ellie?" I forgot what I was going to ask her, just the middle bit. It doesn't matter, she knows.

"Because you need to be able to cut loose and not have to worry about being attacked while you're wasted from time to time, Dean."

"So … you … you're protecting me?"

She snorts beside me. "I'm just making sure you get home okay. That's all."

"Are you armed?" I can feel my eyes widening as I look down at her.

"Yeah. Ready for anything." She pats my hand gently and keeps me walking. I have an annoying tendency to try to stop every time I say anything. I don't know why. Maybe not being able to do two things at the same time? Who knows?

"I have to pee." The need comes very suddenly and I can see her lips compress. Not sure if she's pissed at me, or laughing at me. We're under the partial shadows of a tree and I can't see her face clearly anymore.

"Knock yourself out." She steps away from me, taking a couple of paces toward the motel. I look around for somewhere suitable, and unzip, concentrating hard on making sure I'm aiming properly.

"Okay." I walk toward her, and realise that the street is actually kind of swaying and rolling. It stops doing that when I reach her and put my arm around her shoulders again. She has these awesome abilities to do things like that. Stop reality from turning on its ear. She talks to God too. Sometimes God even talks back. Not that she's ever shared an actual conversation with me. She tells me about it on the rare occasions when she's had one or two too many.

I can feel her pressing me to the left and when I look around, I can see that we're already at the motel. The blue Dodge is sitting in front of the room. Ellie's moving a bit faster, I think she's probably cold. I've got enough anti-freeze in my bloodstream to last all night out here.

She opens the door and pushes me a little so that I go through first. It's like, pretty ungentlemanly of me. I should have been opening the door and holding it for her, but sometimes role reversals are a good thing for a relationship … that is kind of funny, 'cos my knowledge of how relationships work is pretty thin.

Behind me I can hear the door close. Looking around, the motel room depresses me again. It's cheap and convenient to the job we've been working on but you really have to wonder about the people who were in charge of the decorating. It looks like a six year old girl's bedroom. Too much pink. Too much shag. Too much fluff. You'd think Sam would have checked out the rooms, made sure they were okay before he checked us in.

Ellie walks around in front of me and pushes my jacket over my shoulders, catching it as it slides down my arms toward the floor. She hangs it over the back of a chair, and goes to the kitchen counter, getting a glass of water and a couple of Tylenol from her bag and handing them to me.

"Let's just pre-empt the hangover for tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah, okay." I swallow the pills and drink all the water. There's a lot of sloshing in my stomach. It doesn't feel combative though. I look down as her fingers unbutton my shirt quickly, her hands sliding up my chest and over my shoulders to push it down my arms.

"Hey." I smile down at her. Not a hope in hell of doing anything tonight, but sometimes you still have to go through the motions, you know?

"Hey." She smiles back at me, and I know that she knows that there's no way I can get it up tonight.

She's already tossed the shirt over the jacket, and she gestures to the bed behind me, catching me as I misjudge the distance and almost end up on the floor. See what I mean? Strong. I take a couple more steps back and feel the edge of the bed against the back of my legs, sitting down fast. She kneels in front of me and undoes the laces on my boots. It's a weird thing, watching her do it. On the one hand, it's kind of … I don't know … nice to be taken care of like this. On the other hand, I don't want her to feel like she had to do it.

"I got it."

She looks up at me and snorts. "Last time you knotted the laces so bad we had to cut them so you could get them off. Don't you remember?"

"Oh." I didn't remember that. It does sound like something that I might have done.

She pulls the boot off and starts on the other one, fingers flying. My eyes already feel tired and sore and I close them then open them again quickly. Way too much spinning going on with them closed.

The other boot comes off and she stands, bending close as her fingers undo my belt, my jeans. Slipping her arm around me, she pulls me to my feet again, the jeans sliding down off my hips and into a crumpled heap on the floor. Looking down I really have to concentrate to get my feet out without sending us both crashing onto the floor. I admire her patience at times like these.

She pulls back the covers on the bed and I'm tired suddenly, tired and wanting nothing more to sleep. Lying down, the room still spins but not as badly. I think the Tylenol is starting to kick in as well, the pounding is receding to the middle distance.

I can hear the rustle and whisper of her clothes, falling free as she strips off. I open my eyes and watch her, her fine-boned frame and creamy skin, the faint outline of her ribs and long, lean legs.

She gets into the bed and moves next to me, her head lying on the pillow next to mine, her skin cool and silken along my shoulder and arm.

"What's going on?" Her voice is just a whisper.

I sigh. More of a letting out of a breath kind of thing. "Sam. The Vegas job."

"I thought that was a spell? All over with now, back to normal?"

"Yeah, yeah, it is. It's just …" I don't know what to say, I don't know why it felt like everything I've ever known just collapsed into a pile at my feet when he told me that I should take care of myself, for a change.

"Like he grew up when you weren't looking?" I can hear the smile in her voice.

I turn my head to look at her. "Yeah, goddamnit. He doesn't need me any more."

Her arm slides under the pillow, under my neck and I shift over, finding the smooth slope of her breast with my cheek, her arm curling around me and holding me.

"No, he doesn't need you, Dean." Her lips press lightly against my forehead. "But he still loves you, still wants to watch your back, know that you have his."

"Yeah." I pull in a deep, deep breath.

"Do you still need him?" she hesitates for a moment. "Is that still how you see yourself, as his protector?"

"Uh … no." Fuck, that's not true. "Yeah, sometimes. Mostly, okay?"

"Thought you covered this when Sam took Lucifer into the Cage?" she says it lightly, but I can hear the question behind the question.

"So did I." Not that I let him go then. And I'd stayed away, stayed with Lisa and Ben when he came back. "I guess the hallucinations … the worry about him going sideways …"

"Yeah, it's harder to let go if you think they're going to end up in a rubber room."

"Exactly." I feel a wave of relief at her clear grasp of the situation.

"Of course, he's not," she continues quietly. "Going to end up in a rubber room, I mean."

"No. Doesn't look like it."

"So maybe it's not Sam who needs to grow up?"

Wham! I did not see that coming. I should have known it was coming because sneak attacks are kind of her specialty but no, did not see it.

"Maybe you need to think about if you want to stay Sam's guardian, or if you want a life of your own."

And the jab is followed by a straight right. It's not fair, I'm in no shape to take on combos and I don't think she's finished yet.

"Is taking care of Sam an excuse so that you don't have to go after what you want, Dean?"

And the left hook lands.

I'm lying there, and her arm tightens around me a little because she already knows that I feel uncomfortable enough to want to get some space between us. And she's not going to let me wriggle out of this, no matter how shit I feel generally.

"I have what I want."

"Do you?" Her voice is quiet, thoughtful. "I hope so. Because otherwise you're using your brother to not have to think about it, not have to grow up."

Her best moves are the ones that don't look like moves at all. I waited, pretty sure there was more to come, but there wasn't. It was like throwing a rock into a pool, the ripples look impressive but basically she waits until the rock sinks to the bottom.

The rock is me. I did have what I wanted, pretty much. I've got my brother, free of Hell and with most of his marbles intact, and a soul. I have the woman beside me, who gives me her love and keeps me from rolling off the deep end whenever I get too close. She isn't around as much as I want but when she's here, it's all good. Those were the things I asked for, and I have them now.

I also had a new threat to the world in the shape of the munchy monsters. And I'd lost my best friend to them. And my car was locked down in an anonymous storage unit in the middle of the country, but you know, you can't have everything.

"You think I don't have what I want, Ellie?" My voice sounds high to me, and I clear my throat.

"I think that you don't let yourself think about what you want, most of the time, Dean."

Huh. No idea what to say to that.

"Been kind of busy with other things."

"Sure. Always. That's the life, isn't it?" Her arm loosens a little, and I curve mine around her waist. This is how we work. She holds on, when I want to leave, and I hold on when she wants to. Seems to work out okay.

"Are you not happy, with us?" I hate asking these questions. It's like wearing a sign that says 'hit me' because that's nearly always what happens.

I hear her exhale, and her hand lifts to my face, her fingertips following the line from temple to jaw very gently. "I'm very happy with us."

"Good." Probably shouldn't say that out loud. "So what's the problem?"

Again with the 'hit me' sign. Apparently I don't learn.

"The problem is that I don't think you're very happy with us."

There are times when you can hear things in the silence. This sounded like a skull being smacked with a cast iron frying pan, and I swear I could hear the ringing for the next few minutes. The thing of it was, she was right. I wasn't. Happy.

"Why would you say that?" I move back, and this time she lets me go. That one thing, as small as it was, rings the alarm bells for me. Like I said, the way we do it works pretty well. We don't get to leave the discussion until it's over. Now, it looks like she's just holding the door for me.

She smiles and I can hear the wry note in her voice. "Just a hunch."

I can feel my heart beat increasing. I don't want to upset the status quo really. I mean I'm not happy all the time, but that doesn't mean I want to change anything. Big changes are fucking terrifying, they can go either way.

"You're right. I'm not happy." The words fall out without my thinking about them, and if I wasn't so drunk I might've seen the fear in her eyes and made the effort to preface them with something less end-of-the-world-ish. She actually moves about a foot away from me, from my pillow to the one on the other side, and even in the dim lighting of the room I can see the tension in her body and face.

I shake my head, ill-advisedly because it sets off the spinning again, reaching out for her, trying to undo that last piece of stupidity.

"Ellie, don't. That's not what I meant." My head is turning somersaults and I have to lie down again, close my eyes and hope like hell she doesn't get up and leave while I do it.

Most guys would tell you that sympathy and tender, loving care from the woman you love when you're feeling sick is the only way to get better. It's impossible on your own, you really need that sense that she's there, looking after you. Having my head do its own version of Rock of Ages miraculously turns it around. Ellie is back by my side, her arm around me and my cheek resting against her breast in seconds. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't need to.

"I – I've tried, Ellie, trust me, I really have. But it doesn't work. Nothing works when you're not around," I say softly when things have quietened down in my skull. "You know what I want; I want you here, with me."

"That's it? That's why you're not happy?"

I can't tell from the tone of her voice if she is relieved or angry or near tears. All my good radar packs it in under the influence of alcohol and then I'm pretty much as retarded as the average guy when it comes to the nuances of emotion.

"Well, yeah."

She makes a noise, somewhere in her throat, and I feel her ribs rise and fall under my cheek, hear her heart slow down, become steady and even again.

Women amaze me. They really do. They're incredibly complicated, way more than a guy; they have these intricate mazes that are near impossible to work out inside their heads. They're strong. I kid you not, I've seen women take shit that would grind a man down into the dirt, but they hardly ever realise it. But in probably ninety percent of the women I've met, even the really strong ones, the ones who have it all together, they still want to be ying to some guy's yang. And I don't mean that in a dirty way.

The woman next me is a case in point. I know her, maybe not as well as she knows me, but still pretty well. She's strong and she's capable, she can handle anything that comes at her and no matter how many times she's knocked down, she gets up again, her teeth bared, and just goes back for more. There isn't anyone else I know, male or female, with the determination and will she has. But still, she loves me – _me_, just in case we're not entirely clear on that – and the thing that scares her most is not the monsters or the powers of Heaven or the demons of Hell, or dying or anything like that. What scares her the most is losing me. It just so happens that that's what scares me the most too – losing her. So I guess we're both pretty much on the same page there. But I didn't know that until right that minute, when I heard that noise and the pieces fell into place and I realised what she was feeling. Hey, I told you before it takes me a while to figure stuff out.

I might have gotten there faster if I'd an inkling that she'd automatically analysed the moodiness and depression of the past few days as dissatisfaction, instead of me trying to avoid the real issue which was what she'd nailed me with earlier – not knowing how to think of myself when it came to Sam. I thought I was keeping the whole lot hidden, but there you go, apparently not.

It took me a long time, but now when I think of losing her – and trust me, I try real hard not to do that 'cos that can just make you crazy – it's not about losing her to someone else, or because I've fucked up somehow. It's the reality of the life we live. Sometimes your luck can just run out. I'm better about now that than I used to be, because I've seen her in situations that would turn your hair white and I've seen her get out of them. But still, that's the worry for me – one day she won't be quick enough or something'll get the drop on her, and she'll be gone.

Ellie, on the other hand, worries that I'll find someone else. Or will somehow stop loving her. It's her blind spot, because she damned well knows me like the back of her hand in every other respect. She's not so worried about me buying it on a job these days. Maybe that's because of her conversations with God, I don't know. But there's a part of her that thinks that it's possible for me to … I don't know … forget, I guess. Forget that I can't live without her? Forget that when I'm with her, I feel like anything's possible? I honestly don't know.

I slide my arm over her waist, and my thigh over hers, making sure she knows I'm going to let her move until we're through this.

"You thought I wanted to leave?"

She's silent for a moment. "I thought you weren't happy."

"You thought I was looking around for something else?" I wasn't going to let her pretend this was about something it wasn't. We're going to deal with this for once.

She sighs. "The last time I saw you, it was … messy. A lot happened. I wasn't sure how you felt when I left."

"I felt like I'd been given a reprieve from the gas chamber," I tell her. I still have nightmares about the conversation by the river, watching her walking away, knowing that I had brought it on, that my worst fears had come about and I'd driven away the only woman I'd ever loved.

"You told me that you had doubts about this working," she says in a very small voice.

I swear, women have recorders instead of memories. I knew I'd said something along those lines, but I'm pretty damned sure that I said something else later on that should have cancelled it out. But she remembered the one thing I'd said that made her question how I was feeling and now, weeks later, I can't remember the details of any of it. I do remember that the conversation she's referring to had been before all the rest of the disasters over those two days. Before I'd told her I'd wanted to die. You'd think that might have erased the previous conversation. You'd be wrong. Nothing gets erased.

"I did. Until I saw you again." I decide to be blunt about it. "Then I realised it didn't matter if it killed me by inches to have to wait for you, I'd still rather do that than not have you at all."

It's a good thing to lie against someone's chest when you're talking to them about this kind of stuff. I hear her heart skip a beat, and hear her holding her breath, while she absorbs what I've said. Better than trying to figure out from someone's expressions what they're thinking.

I'm starting to worry about the held breath when she finally releases it.

"I had no idea loving you would be so bloody terrifying," she says quietly, her fingers running lightly through my hair.

"It doesn't have to be." I close my eyes. "Just have some faith in me."

The smile is in her voice as she answers. "Guess I deserve that."

"Yeah, you do." I can't get any closer to her, but I try anyway. "I love you. You're the only person I've said that to, and there's a reason for that." I take a breath, things getting clearer as the words come out. "You're the only one I've felt it for. And it doesn't matter what happens, or how bad things get, that isn't going to change. It's never going to change."

Her heart speeds up a little as I say it, then slows down to big, booming thumps.

"I don't want to be anywhere else. I don't want to be with anyone else." I open my eyes and tilt my head back, carefully. "This is where I belong."

She might have been crying, it was hard to tell with the lack of light and the angle I was looking. I do want more in my life than just being my brother's guardian. I want a life with her, maybe even a family with her. I don't know how that will work or even if that's what she wants, but it's clear in my head.

* * *

_I'm making sure another late night drags on  
Just one more drink, but you know I'm wrong  
Sooner or later, when everyone's gone  
You just shake your head and take my hand_

_You seem to know what it takes me time to tell_  
_But then you know me, surprises me how well_  
_You make me an offer that I can't refuse_  
_Take my arm and walk away_

_Help me find my way home_  
_Along this rocky road, 'cause I can't carry on_  
_Will you help me to my bed_  
_Ease my aching head, take me where I belong_

_Sometimes you smile at the clothes that I wear_  
_You listen to reason when I just don't care_  
_It's bringing me down, then I start to fall_  
_You catch my heart and don't let it go_

_Help me find my way home_  
_Along this rocky road, 'cause I can't carry on_  
_Will you help me to my bed_  
_Ease my aching head, take me where I belong_

_As I see you lay your head_  
_I'm glad it's next to mine, mine, whoa_

_Won't you come on home?_

_Help me find my way home_  
_Along this rocky road, 'cause I can't carry on_  
_Will you help me to my bed_  
_And ease my aching head, take me where I belong_

_Take me home_


	11. Chapter 11 Bobby Died

**Chapter 11**

* * *

_"Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o'er-wrought heart and bids it break." - William Shakespeare_

* * *

**_January 30, 2012. Tennessee._**

The truck was almost empty, the storage room behind her, almost full. Ellie wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist and picked up another box, sliding it along the tail gate until she had its weight, then turning and carrying it into the storage room, stacking it on top of the boxes already there.

The buzz of her phone, sitting on a nearby stack of boxes gave her a good excuse to stop. She picked it up.

"Ellie? Bobby's dead."

Dean's voice was husky, his words almost slurred. She leaned against the pile of boxes next to her.

"I'm so sorry, Dean," she said softly.

"Can you come?"

"I'm leaving now, I'll be there as soon as I can." She heard the line cut out and closed the phone slowly.

Bobby dead? Bobby Singer had been an institution. He'd come to hunting later than most in his years, but his mind was uniquely suited to the life; the combination of curiosity, pragmatism, a love of learning, practical bent and an ability to see patterns almost before they emerged, had made him an expert without peer. And to Sam and Dean, he'd been the father they needed, after John had died. The father who was always there, who listened, who backed them up, who understood.

She wiped the tears from her face impatiently and stood, tucking the phone into her pocket, and turning back to the truck. She grabbed the last two boxes, lifting one on top of the other and dragging them off. The combined weight was almost more than she could manage, but not quite. She carried them into the storage room and set them down, then ran the roller door down and locked the padlocks.

There were a few more things she'd been planning on doing, but they could wait, she thought as she lifted the tail gate and locked it into place. She'd been living out of a bag for the past few weeks; everything she needed was already in the truck. She got into the cab and started the engine, the '91 Dodge Ram V8 rumbling satisfactorily. On the passenger side, a map laid open. She picked it up and did some mental calculations. At least two and a half days to Whitefish. She sighed. The truck wasn't economical, but it was useful. And inconspicuous; plain white, well-dusted, it looked like any one of a million similar farm or work trucks. She looked again at the map, memorising the main roads, then pulled out, and headed for the interstate.

* * *

_**February 2012. Whitefish, Montana.**_

Sam stood by the window of the cabin, staring outside, listening to the cold silence that filled the room. It had been five days since Bobby had died. They hadn't spoken more than a dozen words to each other since then.

Dean was sitting on the sofa, staring at nothing, his mind tortured as the grief swelled. He wanted to sleep, to forget for a while but when he closed his eyes, all he saw were the people he'd lost, and the pain would bring him to his feet, to pace restlessly, anger and anguish battling for possession. After a while, he gave up on the idea of sleep, sitting on the couch instead, not even trying to make sense of the thoughts and emotions that were flowing through him.

Bobby had been like a father to them. It was only now, that Dean realised that he'd been more – he'd been the father that he'd wanted, the one who was always there. He'd spent his life doing everything possible to please his father, but John's obsession with hunting, with revenge, had always taken priority over his sons, whether he'd meant it to or not. And they'd both known it, both felt it. Bobby had been the one to throw a ball around with, to listen to their problems, who dropped everything to come when they asked for help.

He took a deep breath, trying to relax the muscles that kept tightening against the pain.

He didn't know how to let go, didn't know how to even accept that the man was gone. He wasn't ready to do the let's-remember-the-good-times thing yet. And mixed in with his grief, was anger, a fury that burned deep and hot, for the thing that had killed him. He couldn't untangle that rage from the grief. And he wanted the rage, needed it. Without it, facing the Leviathans would be a much harder prospect, an impossible prospect.

They paraded past again, the people he'd loved and lost … his mother, his father, Ash and Pamela, Ellen and Jo, Lisa and Ben, Anna, Rufus, Castiel and now Bobby … people who had helped him, helped him and Sam … people who had been their support system … people who had helped –

He straightened up slowly. All of the people who helped them. And now, there was only a couple of people who fit that category left … and only one of them that he loved.

Ellie.

He stood up, turning to Sam. "I think Ellie's in danger."

Sam looked at him. "Why?"

"How many friends do we have left, Sam? Who do we turn to now for help?"

Sam frowned, thinking about it. "There's Frank?"

"Frank isn't a friend. He's one step from the padded cell," Dean said sharply. "Everyone who's ever helped us is dead, Sam. Everyone. Except Ellie. We're running and hiding. We have no base, no support. It won't take long for them to find us here, and then we'll be on the run again."

"What are you saying? That we're being targeted? The Leviathans weren't even around last year."

Dean shook his head impatiently. "No, I know. But there's got to be some reason we're on our own now."

Sam's brow wrinkled uncertainly, wondering at his brother's state of mind. "All of our friends, our family, everyone we've lost were in the life, Dean. That's all it is."

Dean's shoulders slumped. Sam was right. He hoped Sam was right.

* * *

Ellie rubbed her eyes with one hand as she peered through the rain at the sign. Bozeman. Ten miles. She nodded tiredly. She could get some coffee there and send a message.

The rain had been with her for the last two hundred miles. She was getting sick of the sound of the wipers across the windshield, sick of the hiss under the tyres, sick of the grey skies and chilled air.

A chance to stretch her legs, some hot food, fresh coffee and then the last push, she thought.

* * *

"Where the hell is she?" Dean looked out the window at the gathering darkness. "The message said she would be about five hours, and that was seven hours ago."

Sam looked up from his book. "Maybe she got a flat, or ran out of gas. Stop worrying, she's perfectly capable of dealing with whatever it is."

Neither of them mentioned the possibility that she'd been tracked, attacked and was lying, half-eaten somewhere between Bozeman and the cabin.

Dean remained by the window, his whiskey forgotten on the counter beside him, hands shoved into his pockets. Just because Sam hadn't said it, and he hadn't said it, didn't mean it hadn't happened, just that way.

* * *

He was still standing there twenty minutes later when he saw the sweep of the headlights against the trees near the end of the drive. He moved to the door, picking up the shotgun, the shells now loaded with a mixture of salt, borax and iron shot, and waited.

Sam looked up when he heard the engine, and put down his book. He walked to the window and picked up the pump action, standing to one side of the glass.

The truck's engine died and the door opened. The light spilling from the cabin lit a little of the snow-covered yard in front, and both Sam and Dean saw it catch her bright copper hair as Ellie swung around with her bag over her shoulder. Dean put the shotgun down and picked up his switchblade, opening the door as she walked up the steps.

Ellie looked at him, at the knife in his hand and dropped her bag, rolling up the sleeve on her right arm and offering it to him. He looked into her eyes, and then made a small incision along the muscle just below the elbow. Red blood spilled from it. He took the dressing from his pocket and ripped the sterilised packing open with his teeth, folding it gently over the cut and taping it down.

"Sorry." His mouth twisted in a rueful grimace.

"Can't be too sure." She smiled at him, stepping close to him. "You look like hell."

"You look beautiful." He smiled back and put his arms around her. She hugged him tightly, her cheek against his shoulder. Dean felt himself finally start to relax, as if her strength was flowing into him.

* * *

"I haven't had any results with the number you gave me." Ellie sipped her coffee. "But I think that it's missing a number. With six digits, there are a lot more possibilities."

Dean looked at her. "Like what?"

"Like geographical co-ordinates, numbered bank accounts, biblical references, genome sequences …" She shook her head. "I won't have the servers set up for another couple of weeks, so I can't do any heavy-duty searches right now."

Sam frowned. "It might not come to that. Frank is working on the numbers as well."

Ellie shrugged. "The more the merrier, unless he's found something already. I didn't think Frank had turned into an altruist?"

"He hasn't. We gave him fifteen grand to do the work on it," Dean said sourly.

Ellie looked from one to the other. "That must have nearly wiped you out?"

"Just about," Sam said, with a sideways glance at his brother.

"You should have let me know." She got up and walked to her bag, unzipping it and pulling out a flat parcel, wrapped in paper. "I thought you might be getting low anyway." She tossed it to Dean.

He set it on the table and pulled the paper off. Inside were six stacks of fifty dollar bills, bound in packs of a hundred. He looked up at her, his eyes wide with shock.

"Did you rob a bank?"

She laughed, sitting down again. "No. My parents had a lot of blue chip investments; I've been selling them off and getting cash for travelling around. Do I look like a bank robber?"

He looked at the money, and then at her. "No, but hey, I've been fooled before."

Sam did a rough visual count. "Ellie, there's thirty thousand dollars there."

"Yeah, well consider it my investment into finding out what happened so that we can get some payback for Bobby." She finished her coffee and took the mug to the sink. "You can't live on air, and gas is going up. And let me know if you need more."

Dean looked at Sam. "Well, thanks, thank you."

"Yeah. Thanks." Sam looked uncomfortable. "We'll pay it back."

"Yeah, you will. By making sure we get rid of these things." She turned around, leaning back on the edge of the sink and looking them. "I remembered what was bugging me about the lore of the Leviathan."

Sam and Dean exchanged a glance.

"I'll bite – what?" Dean looked at her.

"According to the bible, God killed the female, so that they couldn't breed. So theoretically at least, they're all males. But their physiology suggests that there's a good possibility that they may be able to change sex spontaneously, some of the males becoming female," she paused for a moment. "And if that happens …"

Sam's face became taut with shock. "Then we'll be up to our necks in them."

"If they lay eggs that a single male can fertilise, it will be worse than that," Ellie agreed.

Dean looked at the ceiling. "And the hits just keep on comin'. Any good news?"

"No." She shrugged. "At least not right now."

She yawned, covering her mouth quickly. "Sorry. It's not the conversation."

Dean stood up, and picked up her bag. "Come on, I'll show you the master suite."

He glanced at Sam. "I'm going to bed too. Have we got a place for that?" He pointed to the money on the table. Sam nodded.

"Yeah, Rufus had a safe in the basement. I'll put it in there."

Dean nodded and followed Ellie up the staircase.

* * *

The bedroom was the first door on the right, a large room that went around the staircase void, with a small private bath on the other side. The room was built into the roof, and four dormer windows, two to either side of the gable, let in light and air. The bed sat between the two on the western wall, necessitating some care when getting in and out as the roof sloped down fast.

Ellie looked around, yawning again. The last two days had been torturous. Long-distance driving in the rain really wasn't her thing, she thought, sinking onto the edge of the bed and pulling off her boots and socks. She walked around the bed, and looked into the bathroom, where Dean was brushing his teeth. It was a bit tight for two in there. She pulled off her jeans then freed her hair from the long plait she wore it in, running her fingers through it in the absence of a comb.

The bathroom had a good shower, and she luxuriated in it for ten minutes, washing the road dust from her hair and skin. When she came out, drying herself, Dean was already in the big bed, watching her.

"How are you doing?" she asked, sitting beside him on the edge of the bed.

He looked up at her, and for the first time since she'd arrived, she saw the pain in his face, in his eyes. She put her palm against his cheek and leaned toward him, pressing her lips softly against his.

"Why do you hide yourself from Sam, Dean?" she asked. "Talking to him would have helped – both of you."

"I don't know." He shifted across the bed, making room for her. "I can't. Something stops me."

"Trust?"

"Maybe. That's been a roller-coaster with Sam for a long time now." He rolled onto his side, facing her.

"Since Ruby," she said quietly.

He looked at her and nodded. "Yeah. Since Ruby."

She shifted slightly higher on the pillow, lying on her side so that she was looking into his eyes.

"Can you tell me about Bobby?" she asked. He closed his eyes for a long time.

"Not yet," he finally said, the words spoken very quietly, as his eyes opened and he looked at her apologetically.

She nodded. "It's okay."

He reached out, running his fingers over her cheek, her jawline and down the long curve of her neck. "I know you're tired."

She shivered as his fingers slipped over her collarbone, trailing lightly down the side of her breast. "Not that tired."

She wriggled toward him, closing the distance between them and kissed him. His eyes fluttered shut, and he pulled her close, a soft groan deep in his throat.

* * *

He woke early, the upstairs room filled with light as the sun crested the mountain. He was aware that he could have used another few hours' sleep, but the sleep he'd gotten had been good, no dreams, no restlessness, just peace.

He turned his head to look at her, rolling over and fitting himself along her body, his arms curling around her shoulders, over her waist. She was still sleeping deeply, she didn't stir with his movement. He thought about the distances briefly and realised she must have driven pretty much non-stop to get to them in two and a half days. Just meals, coffee, fuel. No sleep.

There'd been a moment last night, when he thought he could've opened up about Bobby, but then his throat had closed up and he'd been unable to. He didn't think it was about being vulnerable, or about trust, not with her. He thought he just needed some more time to think on it. Work out what he needed to say about … all of it.

She moved slightly next to him, her skin as soft and smooth as silk, sliding against his. He felt a growing warmth, a heat, inside and reluctantly, he moved away from her, loosening his hold, pressing his lips to her bare shoulder. She needed a lot more sleep, and the desire to just spend the day in bed with her was already tempting him; it would be worse if he woke her now.

He eased himself out of the bed, and went to the bathroom, splashing his face with cold water in the basin. Then he got dressed, carrying his boots with him, as he left the room.

Downstairs, he could smell the coffee brewing. He walked down slowly, and sat on the bottom step to pull on his boots. Sam looked up as he stood and walked over to the table.

"Hey." He put down the paper he was looking through, moving the open laptop slightly, making room. "How's Ellie?"

"Sleeping." Dean poured himself a cup of coffee and turned back to the table. "She drove the whole way without stopping."

Sam's eyebrows rose. "You two are made for each other."

Dean smiled. He gestured to the paper. "Have you got anything?"

"Nothing on the current problem." He picked up the paper he'd been reading. "I've still got a few to go through, so there might be something."

"Did you know that Ellie had money?" Dean asked, sipping his coffee.

'Uh … yeah. She told me a while ago. She's worth about four million." Sam glanced sideways at Dean as he said it.

"What?" Dean looked up at him. "You're kidding."

"Nope. That's what she said."

"What the … why is she hunting? She could be … doing anything?" He looked at Sam, his expression incredulous.

Sam shrugged. "I guess she likes doing it. Haven't you asked her about this stuff?"

Dean thought back to a conversation he'd had with her in the heat of a New York summer. _At least I'm doing something that means something, even if only to a few people. I'm not pushing paper or data around in a meaningless round,_ she'd said to him, as they'd talked in the darkness.

"Yeah, but I thought she was like us, just getting by …" Dean said, trailing off. "I guess we can feel a bit better about the thirty Gs."

Sam snorted. "Yeah."

He handed his brother a half a dozen of the papers. "Start reading."

"What about breakfast?"

"Later." Sam picked up another paper and started to read.


	12. Chapter 12 Return to Spokane

**Chapter 12**

* * *

"Dean." Sam looked up from the paper slowly. "Look at this."

Dean turned his head, putting down the paper he was reading and extending his hand. He took it from Sam and read through the article, his brows drawing together.

"Seem familiar to you?" Sam asked quietly.

"Is this …" He glanced at the paper's masthead. "Spokane."

He let the paper drop and looked at Sam. "We never went back there, never even checked on it."

Sam shook his head. "I think Dad meant to, but things happened. And it never came up in the searches. Not even after the last owners died."

Dean looked down at the paper again, holding his lower lip between his teeth. "We can't tell Ellie about this –"

"Can't tell me about what?" Ellie said from the bottom of the stairs. She was dressed in a thin t-shirt and jeans, her feet bare, her hair in its usual long plait. She walked past the table to the coffee pot, and poured herself a cup.

"About what?" she prompted, sitting down next to Dean and looking at him.

"Uh …" Sam started, unsure of what Dean wanted to say.

"Nothing. It's not important." Dean edged the paper further away across the table.

"Tell me something, you two; do you ever actually win at poker?" Her hand flashed out and snagged the paper that Dean was trying to move, whipping it out from under his hand.

She skimmed the articles and then stopped, mid-page. She started reading, her face smoothing out, her eyes intent on the paper.

Sam looked at Dean worriedly. Dean watched her.

She looked up. "This is what you didn't want to tell me about?"

"We didn't know about it until just now," Dean said. Sam nodded.

"It's yesterday's paper, Ellie."

"I can read, Sam." She looked at Dean. "And why didn't you want to tell me about it?"

"I thought it would be too close for you." He sighed. "It's not easy dealing with someone you know –"

"Dean, I've been doing this for a long time," she cut him off. "I want to do this. I have to do this."

"Ellie, it's your parents," Sam tried again. "You know how they died. Will it do you any good to see it?"

"They're my parents, Sam. So no matter what, I have to deal with it." Her face was pale, the skin stretched over the bones, but determined. "So. Am I doing it alone, or are you going to help?"

Dean shook his head. "We'll help. You said your parents were cremated? While you were still in the hospital?"

"Yes." She looked down at the article. "But they can't have … they can't have gotten everything."

He watched her face, his eyes cutting to Sam's briefly. Sam remembered the cabin, the torn and shredded bodies lying in the living room.

"No, they can't have," Dean agreed quietly. "Their remains are still in the cabin."

Ellie looked at him. "Then we'll have to burn it all down."

* * *

Dean stood at the table, the gear bag lying open in front of him. He put another canister of salt inside it, and a bottle of butane. The job itself would be easy; it was Ellie's reactions to what she would have to see that he was worried about.

Sam walked over to the table and watched him load the bag. "This really doesn't need the three of us."

Dean looked up at him. "No, Ellie and I can take care of it. You found something?"

"I'm not sure, but I found something I want to follow up on." Sam shrugged. "Are you taking the car?"

"No. We'll take Ellie's truck. It'll be less conspicuous. You want the car?"

"Yeah, I need the library." He looked out of the window, seeing Ellie loading the truck in the yard. "You think she'll be alright?"

"I don't know." Dean followed his gaze. "I'll try to make sure that we're done before it happens, but I don't really know when it happened."

He zipped up the bag and picked it up off the table. "Just be careful, Sam. They're still looking for us."

Sam nodded. "I know."

Dean walked outside, putting the bag into the back. Sam walked slowly to the door, and watched them get in and drive off.

* * *

"Do you remember anything that happened just before the attack?" Dean leaned against the passenger door, looking at her. Her hands were gripping the steering wheel tightly, the knuckles standing out white under the skin.

"I don't remember what happened a week before the attack, Dean. The doctors thought it could be trauma shock, or it could have been the result of the head injury."

"This is a bad idea, you know," he remarked.

"I know. I don't care." She took the corner a little fast and the big tyres squealed as they went around. Dean glanced at the road.

"At least let me drive, okay?" He could see her pulse, beating wildly in the artery of her neck. "That way we'll make it there in one piece."

She glanced at him, her mouth twisting slightly. "Yeah, okay."

She pulled over onto the shoulder and stopped the car, leaning her forehead against the wheel for a moment.

"I …" she started to say. He leaned over, putting his arm around her shoulder.

"Ssh. I know." He lifted her face, turning it toward him. "Come on, let's get this over with."

He got out of the truck as she slid from the driver's seat to the passenger side. Dean got in again, adjusting the mirrors and wheel for his taller frame. Then he started the engine and pulled back out onto the road.

Ellie leaned against the passenger door, her face turned to the window. She was tense, her head pounding from the effort of trying to remember, trying not to remember. They'd never come back, those memories. She'd never wanted them to return, before. An odd blank spot, covering a period of about a week. In the middle of it, her family attacked, her parents destroyed.

* * *

They stopped once, for fuel and coffee, on the four hour drive. Dean's eyes narrowed as they came close to Spokane. It had been a while since he'd been here, but some of the landmarks tugged at his memory. He looked over at Ellie.

"You know where the turnoff is to the cabin?"

She straightened up, looking around them. "Yeah, I remember this. Take the left turn after we pass through those lights."

He cruised through the amber light as it changed to red, and took the next exit. The houses disappeared after a couple of miles, forest taking over both sides as they headed south on 27, climbing into the mountains.

"There. The next right." Ellie pointed ahead of them. He turned and they entered a plain two lane road.

"It's changed. There are a lot more houses here now," she commented, staring out of the window.

Dean looked around. He couldn't remember this road. He remembered driving through the forest that night, seeing nothing but trees.

'Yeah. Progress."

"Take the next right. You'll come to a fork, take the right hand side." She closed her eyes. The sun was still high in the sky, the shadows more or less directly under the trees. For the first time, she felt a memory pushing at her, flashes, fragments coming back.

Dean turned right and then took the right hand fork. After a few minutes, the trees fell away from the ridge line. The grassy fields were not what he remembered. He glanced at Ellie, worry darkening his face as he saw her tension.

"Ellie? Where now?" he asked quietly. Ahead the ridge kept climbing, he could see a roof behind a few trees.

"Straight ahead. The cabin was the last on this road." She opened her eyes and looked around. "They must have cleared here. It used to be all trees."

He nodded. They crested the ridge and he could see the cabin. It was really a house now, extended out and up. A second building stood close by, at an angle to the house.

Ellie looked at it, frowning. "I know it's this one. It doesn't look the same, but this is it."

She rubbed her eyes and temples with her fingertips. Dean drove to the front of the house, easing the truck around the gravel yard.

"You okay?" Now that he wasn't concentrating on the road, he could see that her skin was white, bruised purple shadows under her eyes.

She nodded. "Just a shock, that's all. We should get started." She opened the door and stepped out of the truck, closing the door behind her and leaning against it for a moment.

Dean got out and grabbed the bag from the back. He walked around the rear of the truck, as Ellie straightened up and started walking to the broad, shallow steps that led on to the wide front porch.

The house was empty. Ellie picked the locks on the front door, grateful for the concentration required, helping her to shut out the strangeness she felt, her memories of the cabin being overlaid with the changes of the past seventeen years.

She opened the door and they walked inside. The main living room of the cabin had been left mostly intact. The fieldstone fireplace was the same, taking up half of the wall. She walked slowly through, looking at the rooms, seeing the old layout superimposed over the new. She looked at the staircase, and felt the dizziness return. She put her hand out to catch the newel post next to the bottom step, swaying slightly as her vision greyed at the edges.

Dean set the bag down next to the door and returned to the truck to get the gasoline. They'd brought ten gallons, in five containers, to ensure that the house was burned to the ground.

He left the jerricans on the porch, and looked at his watch. Just on four o'clock. The elemental's attack had occurred sometime between six and ten o'clock. He and his father and Sam had arrived just past ten thirty that night.

He walked back into the house and stopped. Ellie lay on the floor, her body twisted as if she'd tried to turn as she fell. A small thread of blood trickled down her forehead. He ran to her, lifting her from the floor, and put his fingers against her carotid. Her pulse was strong, steady. He looked at the cut in her scalp, parting her hair along it. It was only small, perhaps a blow as she'd gone down.

"Ellie?"

He lifted her eyelid, brows drawing together as he saw that the pupil was dilated, and not contracting when the light struck her eye.

He swore softly under his breath. He eased her back to the floor and got up, stripping off his jacket and rolling it up, putting it under her head. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Ellie stirred a little, moving her arm.

"Ellie?" He leaned over her, his fingers lightly stroking the side of her face. "Ellie?"

Ellie opened her eyes, and turned her head to look at him. "What happened?"

"You scared the crap out of me," he said, helping her to sit up. "You don't remember falling?"

She closed her eyes briefly. "Actually, that's the problem. I did remember."

He watched as she looked around the room, her gaze stopping at the foot of the stairs.

"I'd been ill that day, in bed. I had a bad dream; I came down to tell my mom about it. I was standing there," She pointed to the bottom step, "when it hit the front door."

Dean took a deep breath.

"The front door had glass panes. The glass was whipped up, like a whirlwind. It struck my dad there." She looked over to the fireplace. "He never had a chance. It was like watching someone in a blender."

She was looking into the past. Dean saw her eyes lose their focus, her voice softening.

"They hadn't seen me come down the stairs, and it wasn't until Mom turned to run up the stairs that she realised I was there," she paused. "She screamed at me to run. And then she went the other way, toward the kitchen. I didn't move. I watched it follow her."

She sighed, blinking slowly, her eyes coming back into focus as she turned to him.

"I remember looking at the clock, or seeing it at any rate." She turned her head to look at the blank wall above the doorway to the kitchen. "It was six fifteen. Just on sunset."

"I ran up the stairs, after I saw it … after Mom was killed. It followed me, hitting all the rooms. It wasn't as keyed to me as it was to my parents. It passed me by and I started to run for the stairs. I had no idea where I was going, really. There wasn't anywhere safe to hide, safe to run to. My parents had no idea that they'd been targeted."

She looked up to the banister rail that marked the edge of the upper floor landing. "I was turning for the stairs."

"It uses everything it touches. We had a bearskin rug in my parent's room. It must have shredded it, but the claws were in the whirlwind as well. It swept me out over that railing and I fell to the floor, feeling as if my back had been opened by knives. It came down and must have knocked the bookcase over, on top of me."

She shook her head. "I can't believe it didn't know I was still there, still alive. But it left."

Dean felt her recitation of the memory segue seamlessly into his own memories of that night, finding the cabin, seeing the remains of her parents, finding her under the bookcase. He'd never seen such destruction as he'd seen that night, coming into the cabin, everything broken and smashed, blood spray covering the walls, the floor, the ceilings. He remembered hating himself for holding down the small girl as his father had dressed her wounds, feeling her struggles, like a bird in his hands, against the pain.

He looked at his watch. It was five o'clock.

"Ellie … we have to get started. We're running out of time."

She looked at him, nodding. "Yeah, it'll start soon."

He helped her to her feet, watching as she tested her balance. She nodded again when she was sure that the dizziness had gone. They picked up the jerricans from the porch, Dean taking the upper floor, Ellie splashing the gasoline around all the rooms of the lower floor.

With the extensions, the house was much bigger than it had been. He worked as fast as he could but he could feel time ticking past. He emptied the first can over the bedrooms at the northern end of the house, new rooms that had been part of the renovations, and went to the landing to get the second can, going to the southern end and the original bedrooms.

Downstairs, Ellie struggled to move faster, battling fatigue and the almost drugged sensation she felt having that large block of memory returned. She pushed it away but it kept on unreeling behind her unclosed eyes, dragging her attention from what she was doing, producing phantom pain along her nerve endings. Twice she dropped the jerrican she held as the memory of the claws raking down her back made her body spasm backwards.

She finally emptied it, carrying it back to the porch and grabbing another one when the front door slammed shut. Around the house, the trees seemed to be moving in a wind.

She looked at her watch, seeing that it was a few minutes past six. They should have more time, she thought, frantically opening the lid of the jerrican and throwing its contents over the kitchen benches. It'd been six fifteen when the elemental had entered.

"Dean! It's coming!" She tipped the jerrican up and let the remainder of the fuel spill out onto the floor.

Upstairs, he grabbed the last can, and opened it, throwing it around the bathroom, cursing the slowness of the liquid coming out. He tipped it up, and watched the last stream pour out onto the tiled floor. He picked up the other two empty cans, heading for the stairs.

The walls and roof began to creak. He slid awkwardly on the top step, his boot sole slick with fuel over the varnished wood, and caught at the rail, bracing himself. Ellie stood in front of the closed door.

"I don't think we're going to be able to get out this way," she called out to him.

He nodded, dumping the jerricans as he half swung, half jumped down the stairs. Behind Ellie, the front door began to vibrate, and Dean stretched out, reaching her and pulling her aside as the frame creaked and the screws in the hinges fell to the floor. They landed on the floor together as the door blew inward, aware that the echo had begun.

"As soon as it passes us, we get out and toss a match back in, okay?" Dean leaned close to Ellie, raising his voice as a roar of wind entered the house. She nodded, her eyes fixed on the spectral whirlwind.

Next to the fireplace, a figure appeared, tenuous and jittering. Dean heard Ellie's sharp inhale. He turned to look, his hand tightening on hers as he saw the elemental move toward it.

The ghostly image threw up its arms, trying to defend itself against the glass-filled twisting wind that engulfed it. In less than a second the body was gone, blood, flesh and bone spraying out in every direction from the elemental. He felt his stomach churn, and looked at Ellie, fear clutching at him suddenly as he saw that she was becoming lost in the memory, lost in what was happening again in front of her.

"Come on!" He stood, dragging her up beside him. "We have to go, now!"

He put his arm around her waist, half walking, half carrying her to the broken-framed door. Behind them, the roar of the wind increased, becoming sharper as the elemental picked up the debris from the things it had smashed, a tinkling, crackling, pounding roar that filled the room.

He turned at the doorway, putting himself between Ellie and what was happening in the room, and pulled out a matchbook.

At the other side of the room, the elemental approached another ghost. He watched as the woman screamed at the stairs and turned away, running for the kitchen. The elemental expanded as it followed her. Just before the doorway, the woman stopped and turned, again looking at the staircase. She had the same long bright hair as her daughter, the same oval face, the wide full mouth now stretched in a scream. The elemental fell on her.

Dean lit the match and tossed it into the room. The gasoline caught at once, flaring brightly as the flames raced along each trail, burning into the dry wood of the pine floor.

He turned away, lifting Ellie into his arms and running down the porch steps to the truck as behind him the elemental's phantasmal roar was drowned out by the fire's greater hunger and the air was sucked into the growing inferno.

The house went up quickly, the flames racing along the walls and ceilings, devouring the wooden frames and lining. Dean opened the passenger door of the truck and put Ellie inside; he stood beside the door and watched the upper floor catch alight. The conflagration was too big to hope that the neighbours wouldn't see it, wouldn't call the fire department immediately. There were a lot of woods around here; the danger to other homes would be great.

He closed the passenger door, and ran around to the driver's side, getting into the truck and starting the engine. They needed to get off this road as soon as possible. He looked at Ellie. She was leaning against the window, staring at the house. He couldn't see her expression, but the limpness of her posture worried him. The sooner they were out of here, the better, he thought.

He put the truck into gear and hit the accelerator, letting the wheel turn freely as the rear end swung out, then straightening it out when they pointed down the road again.


	13. Chapter 13 The Elemental

**Chapter 13**

* * *

Dean looked in the rearview mirror as behind them a line of fire trucks came up the road and turned into the road they'd just left. He nodded to himself. The house couldn't be saved. But nothing else would burn.

He drove along the road for another mile with the headlights off, then made a left turn back toward the 27, turning them on as he turned onto the larger blacktop road.

Ellie hadn't spoken. He glanced at her.

"Ellie?"

She turned her head toward him.

"Are you all right?" He looked at the road, but turned his head slightly.

"Yeah. I …" she hesitated. "I'm glad you were here."

He nodded. "Yeah, me too."

They were travelling south, moving steadily at fifty five, when they were hit. Dean felt the back of the truck lift off the road, losing traction.

"What the fuck?" He looked over his shoulder as the rear end hit the ground again, and the truck surged forward. There was nothing behind them, the black road empty. Ellie had put her hands out, bracing them against the dash as she was flung forward. She turned and looked at Dean.

The next hit came from the side. The truck spun around and Dean swung the wheel into the direction of the spin, alternating stamping on the brake and accelerator to pull them out.

"Sonofabitch," he said softly. "We've got company, but I don't know what."

Ellie looked around, at the empty road, the forest to either side of them.

The truck lurched sharply to one side, tilting upwards. Ellie gripped the door handle to keep herself from falling onto Dean.

"Turn around, just go, as fast as you can," she said.

He nodded, and swung the wheel around, pushing down on the accelerator. For a moment they were travelling on two wheels then the truck crashed down onto four again. He spun the wheel, and they swung around, going back up the 27 the way they'd come. He pushed his foot down, their speed increasing to seventy, then eighty. For a few moments it seemed that they might have gotten away. Then there was another hit from behind, shoving the truck forward. Dean held the wheel, his eyes narrowed as he increased their speed and they flew up the road.

At the turn he yanked the handbrake, locking the rear wheels and spun the wheel again. The truck lurched around the tight corner, and he prayed it wouldn't flip, releasing the brake and hitting the accelerator again. It found its balance and surged forward.

"Where the hell are we going?" he yelled at Ellie.

"I don't know." She was bracing herself between the door handle and the dashboard.

"Do we go back the way we came?"

She shook her head. "No, straight on."

The road started out as a blacktop two lane road but within a couple of miles, they were on gravel and it had narrowed. The forest was close to the sides and Dean could feel sweat running down his neck as he kept their speed high, the rear end sliding out on every corner, every twist.

They were climbing, the road twisting up over a narrow ridge, when they were hit again. This time the shove came on a turn. The truck spun around on the loose gravel, and Dean barely had time to straighten it out before the next hit came, sending them off the road, and into the trees.

They came to an abrupt stop as they dropped off a sharp incline, the nose of the truck hitting a tree. Dean leaned back in his seat, raising a hand to the lump rapidly rising on his forehead. He looked at his fingers but there was no blood. He turned to Ellie, who was crumpled in the footwell beneath the dash. He could see blood flowing down the side of her face. He scrambled along the seat, and lifted her up, her head rolling back against his arm. The cut was superficial, bleeding freely but shallow. The lump along it told him that she'd hit the edge of the dash.

He looked around, trying to see any movement in the trees that surrounded them, but it seemed to be still.

"Ellie, come on, wake up." He patted the side of her face gently. "We have to get out of here."

She jerked in his arms, and sat up suddenly. "We crashed?"

"Yeah. We have to get out of here." He looked down at her. "Can you walk?"

"Yeah, I think so. Just a sore head." She frowned, looking at the tree in front of them. Dean tried his door but it was jammed somewhere. He reached over Ellie and the passenger door fell open. Ellie grabbed her backpack, slinging it over her shoulder automatically as she slipped out.

"Let's go."

They were a few yards from the truck, when they saw it lifted into the air, and thrown down.

Ellie looked at Dean. He watched the truck lift again, and fall, this time thrown against the tree.

She gripped his arm, her fingers biting into the muscle. "Come on."

He turned away from the systematic destruction of the vehicle and followed her into the forest, increasing their speed as they went.

"What was that?" he asked, as he followed her under a fallen log.

"I think it's the elemental." She looked behind them, then back to the narrow deer trail they were on.

"It can't be. We killed the psychic." He ran next to her, ducking under the low hanging branches, jumping over the fallen ones.

"I don't know how, but I'm pretty sure that what it is." She twisted slightly, jumping over a rain channel. "It went for the truck, for my scent, my essence."

She came to the edge of a dropoff suddenly, throwing out her arm to warn Dean. In the darkness it was impossible to see how deep it was, or how steep. Ellie dropped to the ground, and slithered over the edge, feet first. Dean looked down, watching her disappear into the shadows and dropped as well.

They slid down through the loose pine needles, dirt and over rock and branches. The slope was steep. She hit the tree with her feet, and Dean slammed into her back.

"God, sorry," he grunted, rolling to his feet and taking her hand to pull her up.

"Ssh. Look." She pointed up the slope. At the top the trees were lashing.

"Come on." She moved quietly across the slope, toward a deep shadow in the cleft of a large rock. Dean followed her, glancing back to the top of the slope. The movement of the trees was further down the slope now; it was definitely following them.

Ellie glanced up and ran toward the rock, as the sound of the wind picked up behind them. She crouched down beside and looked up at Dean as he came up beside her.

"Go, it won't follow you, it'll stay on me."

"No, we're staying together," he said, shock and anger filling him at the suggestion.

"Dean, someone has to break the circle, I can't get away fast enough. You can."

He shook his head, glancing back over his shoulder up the slope. "No. Get in there, I'm not leaving you."

For a moment he thought she was going to keep arguing, then she turned away, feeling the rock with her hands and dropping to her stomach, crawling fast through the narrow hole, hoping that there was nothing inside, hoping it wouldn't be too narrow for Dean's greater bulk.

Dean stared as she vanished into the rock in front of him. He dropped to his hands and knees, then to his stomach and wriggled in after her, feeling the edges of the rock scraping against his shoulders and chest. For a terrifying moment, he thought he was stuck, then he shifted his position and managed to clear the obstruction. The narrow tunnel widened a little as he moved forward on his forearms and toes, then opened out into a small cave. Ellie was crouched next to the entrance, her flashlight casting a dim spill of light against the back of the wall of the cave, digging through her backpack as he came through and sat up.

"Get out of the way." She pulled out a canister of salt, and slipped back into the tunnel entrance, disappearing down it for a few feet. She poured the salt across the entrance, and wriggled backwards into the cave.

She turned around and picked out two clay lumps and a coil of fine gold wire. Dean watched her slip back into the tunnel with them, this time going only about half way down. She lay there for several minutes. When she came back, her hands were empty.

"What was that?" He looked at her.

She wiped her eyes, leaving a smudge of dirt over her brow. "Talismans. Protection. I made the wire into a labyrinth. It'll stop the elemental from entering here, for awhile anyway. Buy us some time." She reached past him for the flashlight, turning it off to save the batteries.

There was a roaring at the entrance of the tunnel and she drew back against the wall, next to Dean. But nothing came up the tunnel and the noise died down.

Ellie let out her breath. She reached for the pack again, pulling it closer and feeling around inside of it. After a moment she found what she wanted. Dean strained to see in the darkness of the cave. He heard the soft thunk of something hitting the dirt floor. Then a small gurgling noise.

"Got the matchbook?" she asked, running her hand down his arm. He pulled it from his jacket pocket, feeling for her hand and closing her fingers around it. She tore a match off and lit it, then dropped it into the shallow metal bowl that sat on the floor. The oil inside caught at once, burning with a gentle flame.

"Romantic." Dean grinned at her. She moved the bowl to the other side of the cave, the corners of her mouth tucking in as she hid a smile.

"We're going to need some help. Have you got your phone?" She turned back to him, crawling over to him and sitting cross-legged in front of him. He nodded, pulling it from his pocket.

"How much rock do you think is over us?" He turned it on, watching the signal gauge as he moved it around.

"Not much, we're in the side of the hill, I think."

"Got a signal. Pretty weak, but better than nothing." He dialled Sam's number.

"Sam?" Dean pressed the phone harder against his ear. It really wasn't much of a signal. "No, we're trapped in a cave … Ellie says it's the elemental, it was let loose when we stopped the loop … I don't know …"

Ellie gestured for the phone. He passed it to her.

"Sam? It's Ellie … do you remember where the psychic's house was? … Inside there'll be a circle …. Yes, still open … you have to cut it with a knife, or break it … I don't know … not real long."

She handed the phone back to Dean.

"Sam? … it was near a town called something Falls … I know! … yeah, as fast as you can."

He closed the phone as Sam hung up. "You think the spell circle feeding it is still open?"

"That's the only thing I can think of. Didn't you search the house when you killed the psychic?"

"I don't remember." Dean looked at her. "We must have, but I guess we missed it. How long will that protection last?"

"I don't know. It depends on what the elemental was supposed to do. It's using up energy hunting me. It's limited by what it can draw through the circle that's still open. Maybe a few hours."

* * *

Sam grabbed the keys and closed the door behind him, running for the car. He couldn't remember the name of the town either, and he slid into the driver's seat, leaning over and popping the glove box to get the maps.

He remembered it wasn't in Washington or Idaho, they'd been driving for at least a couple of hours from the cabin, tracking the elemental east, maybe north east. It was near a long lake, in the mountains. And it had been somewhere off the I-90, they'd turned off and headed north. He looked along the interstate marked on the map, looking for a town with Falls in the name. He almost laughed when he saw it.

Thompson Falls. In Montana.

It was about two hours' drive from Whitefish. He started the engine and headed down the twisting gravel road to the 93, his smile fading as he realised that Ellie and his brother might not have two hours.

* * *

"So much for an easy job," Dean said dryly. He finished cleaning Ellie's two scalp wounds.

"I'm sorry," Ellie said, turning to look at him.

"For what?"

"You and Sam were right. If I hadn't come, the elemental probably would have dissipated, without a target to follow. Now we're stuck here."

"Don't do that, Ellie." He settled himself more comfortably against the wall, drawing her to him, putting his arms around her.

Leaning into him, Ellie sighed softly. "I remembered you finding me. You and Sam. And your father."

Dean looked down at her face. He thought of how he'd held her down, so that his father could clean the wounds, her high child's scream as the alcohol had sluiced over the open flesh. Leaving her, alone and unprotected for the police and ambulance to come, while they had gone to continue the hunt. It had been the first time he'd really doubted his father's decision.

He sighed softly.

"I'd forgotten a lot about my family too," Ellie said, her voice a little higher than it usually was. She'd drawn her legs up, knees tight to her chest, her arms crossed over them. "Maybe not forgotten actually, more of shutting it out."

He hesitated. "What do you mean?"

She looked at the flame dancing slowly over the oil. "Once upon a time … there was a man and a woman and they loved each other more than anything else on earth." She bowed her head, and Dean watched her nervously, not liking the way her voice had gotten higher, the sharp edge to it.

"They wanted to be together for ever, and they vowed to never have a family, because they only had enough love for each other. But … well, accidents happen, and they had a little girl."

"They took care of her. She was clothed and fed and washed and given all sorts of things to keep her occupied."

He heard her breath catch, heave suddenly. "Ellie?"

"I've got nothing to bitch about, Dean." She shook her head. "I had it good."

"Loving someone who doesn't love you back is really the least of what can happen to a child, isn't it?" She leaned her head on her arms. He waited, trying to take in what she was saying, feeling the beginnings of a thread of anger rising on her behalf.

"I remember one Christmas. I woke up and ran downstairs, and the tree was all beautiful, and there were presents under it, literally filling up all the space beneath it. I was eight, I think. I was excited but there was something wrong as well. I couldn't hear any noises from the rest of the house. I …" she hesitated, the memory coming back strongly as she concentrated on it. "I went looking for them. From the attic to the basement, I looked right through the house. They weren't there. I don't know why I didn't see the note earlier, I must have passed by the thing a dozen times while I was looking for them. It said that they'd gone away for a couple of weeks; Mrs Hatcher would be coming to look after me. Merry Christmas."

She lifted her head and looked at him, her face smooth, her eyes dry, her mouth twisting into a kind of smile. "Doesn't rate as child abuse. Not even close. It was the first time that I realised that our family was different, though. That what I saw in other families, what I read about in books, what I saw in films … didn't happen universally."

"I asked if I could go to a boarding school after that. And they were happy about it. So I didn't come home much. I shouldn't have even been there, that night. It was only that I had to get some stuff signed to take back to school. I would have left the next day."

"You didn't remember this before?" he asked.

"Yeah, I did. But I … I don't know … after they died, it was easier to think of them as if it had been different. I gave myself a different upbringing, a different past. I convinced myself that I had misread my childhood, it hadn't been that way, it had been full of love."

He watched her, his heart aching for that little girl, left alone. "Is this why you don't want a family, Ellie?"

She looked away. "Maybe. When I was younger, I swore I wouldn't fall in love, wouldn't get close to anyone. I didn't want any of it." She shrugged. "It took me a while to realise that doesn't really work."

He remembered her at the roadhouse, her cool self-possession, polite but utterly unmoved by him. She'd been twenty then.

"What changed your mind?" He didn't really want to the answer to that, didn't want to think about another guy, being with her, loving her, being loved by her.

She looked at him for a long moment, looking into his eyes, her expression a little puzzled, a little wry. "You did."

The two simple words took his breath away. He'd heard the expression before, had always thought of it as one of those over-romanticised ideas that didn't really happen in real life, something for romance novels and love songs and chick-flicks, but that's what happened. He couldn't breathe. He looked at her, his eyes wide, and struggled to get his lungs moving again.

* * *

Sam glanced at the airport signs as he came into the outskirts of Thompson Falls. The mountains rose steeply to either side of the road, covered in forest, and the valley was still black with night.

He frowned as landmarks tugged at his memories. He'd been twelve when they'd driven through here; tired, but excited. His memories were filled with the feelings he'd had – about hunting, his father, his brother, the girl they'd left alone, the psychic who'd created that destructive force that had destroyed a family. He tried to shut out the feelings, to concentrate on the memory alone.

He drove into the town, along the main street, following the river to his left as he slowed, looking for something that was familiar. The town was bigger, the shopfronts had been torn down, rebuilt, renovated. Crossing the river was an old bridge. That was familiar. He passed the library and turned left, the tyres changing their note as they hit the concrete.

A second bridge carried him over a narrow estuary, a rapidly silting up false channel.

He blinked as the road doglegged ahead, dropping down on one side, rising on the other. When he reached the T junction, he turned left automatically, following the larger road up as it climbed the ranges to the west of the town.

He knew this road. He would follow it for six or seven miles and there would be a right hand turn, onto a narrow gravel road. He let out his breath and put his foot down.


	14. Chapter 14 A Time To Grieve

**Chapter 14**

* * *

"I didn't really get it." Dean spoke hesitantly, feeling his way for the words. "Not until Bobby died." He looked at her. "I mean, I knew how important he was to me, to me and Sam, but I didn't really _get_ it."

Ellie nodded, not wanting to interrupt, wanting him to speak and release his grief.

"He was the father I was looking for. He was always there, Ellie. Even when Dad dropped us off there, told Bobby to teach us something or other. He'd play ball with me, instead of doing target practice. He knew what we needed – and it wasn't more training. It was just being a father, talking to us, being around for us."

He stopped, thinking about the last visit they'd had, before his father had blown it all to hell.

"Bobby would've let us stay with him the whole time, I think. The last time we were there, I was fifteen, Sam was eleven. It was just before the hunt for the psychic, I think. We'd been there for a couple of weeks, going to school, just doing ordinary things. When Dad got back, Bobby told him that he should leave us there; give us a chance to be kids for a while. Dad blew up at him."

He winced, remembering his father's words. He'd been furious that Bobby had told him how to raise his sons, furious because he'd known Bobby was right, Dean guessed now.

"He told Bobby that a man who couldn't even take care of his own wife, had no business taking care of his sons."

At the time, the words hadn't made much sense to Dean. But sometime Bobby must have told his father the full story, and having it thrown back in his face was more than he'd been able to bear. "Bobby was mad, I don't think I've ever seen him that mad since. He picked up his shotgun and told Dad to leave, to never come back."

He sighed, seeing the events clearly now. "That was the last time we saw him, until after Dad was taken, by Meg."

"You don't know how many times he's put his life on the line for us. How many times he's just left whatever he was doing to come and help us."

He hunched down a little, as the grief he'd swallowed, had pushed down and away, finally came to the surface. "He would have died for us. He did die for us. I don't know how we're supposed to go on without him."

Ellie straightened up, turning and putting her arms around him. She felt him shaking, as he fought against his pain, fought to keep it inside.

"Don't fight it, Dean," she whispered softly against his cheek. "Let go. Bobby wouldn't have wanted to be another wound in your heart."

* * *

Sam slowed the car as he came to the end of the road. The wall of rock looked the same, the oddly-shaped house built into it, like a castle designed by a delusional mind.

He wasn't so far from town, but high on the ridge, surrounded by forest and the looming peak in front of him, he felt as if he could have been hundreds of miles from anyone. The silence was deep.

The sky was beginning to lighten, but he thought that sunshine wouldn't reach here until much later, the mountain casting a black shadow over the trees, over the house, over the road.

He stopped the engine and got out, going around to the trunk to get a flashlight and weapons. Ellie had said that the circle had to be cut, or broken. He took out a silver knife, slipping it through his belt, and began to pack the small gear bag with what he needed.

The front door was closed but unlocked, exactly as they'd left it seventeen years ago. He was puzzled that the place had never been sold, never been claimed by the county for back taxes even.

He walked into the house, turning on his flashlight.

It took him a half hour to realise why they hadn't been able to find the circle or circles the first time. The house was large, but there had to be a lot more of it somewhere. The rooms he'd searched were ordinary, rooms for living in, not for practising occultism. He hadn't even found a library, the living room's bookshelves had been filled with fiction and biographies, some general reference books, the only volume of note was an old, beautifully kept edition of The Lord of the Rings, lying open on a side table. It was a front, he guessed, her real life had been hidden, somehow.

He began to move along the walls, pressing against them, trying to judge their thickness, looking for a door to lead him to where Irena Falconer had practised her work.

* * *

Ellie heard a low moan near the tunnel's entrance. She stiffened, and Dean straightened, wiping his face.

The elemental was testing their defences, she thought, staring at the dark hole that led to the outside. The noise of the wind increased suddenly, roaring up the tunnel, the flame in the oil lamp bending and bowing with the air that rushed into the cave.

"It's past the salt," she said quietly. Dean nodded, hoping that whatever it was she'd put in place would hold it back. He looked around them; the cave was so small they wouldn't be able to defend themselves against it if it made it inside.

Dust and leaf matter swirled into the cave, a miniature whirlwind that filled the air and then stopped, dropping the debris over them. Dean coughed, shaking his head and wiping his eyes. The damned thing could probably choke them to death without even entering, he thought, spitting out a mouthful of dried leaves.

Ellie dug into her pack, pulling out a clean large handkerchief and a square silk scarf. She handed Dean the handkerchief, tying the scarf around her nose and mouth. He did the same quickly.

"Is there anything you don't have in that bag?" he said softly to her. He couldn't see her mouth, but her eyes crinkled suddenly as she smiled.

The noise of the wind dropped, as abruptly as it had the previous time, the elemental withdrawing. He pulled the kerchief down off his face, letting it fall around his neck.

"How long do you think?" He looked at her.

Ellie pulled her scarf down. "I don't know, but not long."

* * *

The long bookcase swung out, revealing a dark room beyond. Sam looked at it, delighted. The book placement lock was an old favourite of his, a trick learned from the movies. He hurried through, his flashlight lighting up the room.

The room was quite large, but completely empty. Three doors led off it. He sighed, and walked to the first door. It swung open easily, and led into a library, a real library, the room a large pentagon. The walls rose to two story height, shelves built in along them, a small spiral staircase leading up to a gallery, a rail fixed at six foot from the floor holding a sliding ladder. The shelves were filled with books, upright and lying on their sides, more books were stacked in piles around the long table and over half its surface. A leather covered sofa and two armchairs were arranged before a fireplace. Sam looked up. Over the length of the ceiling, three devil's traps had been painted there; the centre one was from the Key of Solomon, the one to the left was the Hebraic trap that Ellie had shown him, four years ago. The one to the right he'd never seen before, though there was no mistaking its purpose.

He moved quickly around the room, looking for any indication that another secret passage lay behind the shelving. He couldn't find anything. He left and went back into the large antechamber, heading for the second door.

It also opened easily, and he stared down at a long flight of stairs. The stairs had been cut from the bedrock, under the house. The walls of the staircase were rough-hewn but even, the ceiling low enough that he had to bend slightly to avoid hitting it.

He walked down slowly, playing his light over the walls. At the bottom he found a very large circular room, excavated from the rock, and lined with stone blocks. The air was dry and cool, suggesting that a damp course had been laid beneath the stone-flagged floor. Several tables were scattered throughout it, holding bowls and beakers, boxes and baskets of herbs, bones, crystals and wire, lumps of clay and piles of dirt.

The workroom, he thought. Where were the circles? He looked around, and began to walk slowly through the room. He almost didn't see the door, it was flush with the stone wall, the timbers silvered with age to almost the same colour as the stone, but the flashlight's beam had been shining obliquely across it, and he saw its edges.

He pushed at it. It didn't budge. He put the flashlight down on the floor and started to run his hands over it, looking for anything that might be a trigger.

* * *

"He died for us, because of us," Dean said flatly. Ellie shook her head.

"He died because he was in the same fight as you. There's a difference, Dean."

"He wouldn't have been in that fight if it weren't for us." He looked at her.

"Of course he would have. The Leviathans have been targeting hunters across ten states, what makes you think Bobby would have been sitting at home, doing nothing?"

He was silent.

"You can carry the blame for everything if you want to. I can't stop you." She turned to face him, kneeling beside him. "But don't kid yourself that any of this has happened because you brought it on."

A low moan of wind echoed up the tunnel. Ellie twisted around to face it. The flame in the lamp flickered, throwing their shadows over the walls. She crawled to the centre of the cave, settling herself cross-legged in front of the tunnel.

"What are you doing?" Dean looked at her back, fear suddenly escalating, prying him loose of the depression that had been reaching for him.

She didn't answer him, closing her eyes and letting her hands rest limply on her thighs. She shut out the distractions of the real world and focussed on a symbol, deep within her mind.

Dean felt the stirrings of wind coming up the tunnel, bringing a cold, acrid, metallic scent to the cave. He rolled onto his hands and knees, unsure of what to do. He could hear rustlings in the tunnel, feel the tentative gusts against his face and he started forward, to put himself at least between the opening and the woman sitting defenceless in its path. The wind roared into the cave, filled with debris, shoving him back against the wall of the cave with a careless, monstrous strength, spiralling around Ellie.

* * *

Sam looked at the door in frustration. There was nothing. He turned away and then a thought hit him. He frowned, trying to remember the scene in the book.

_Speak friend and enter._

"Mellon," he said loudly. For a second there was silence, then a loud click as the tenons of the locks that held the door slid back.

"Huh." He walked forward through the door. There were times when it was a definite benefit to be a geek.

The room was a pentagon, like the library above. It was completely empty of any furniture. On the floor were circles, many of them, some laid permanently, protection and conjuring, molten metal poured into channels cut from the stone, the junction points of pentacle and circle marked with crystals. Others were temporary, drawn in waxed crayon or chalk. He walked between them, looking for the one he needed to break, hoping that it wasn't going to be one of the permanent ones.

* * *

Dean was held back against the wall of the cave. He could feel a thin trickle of blood running down the side of his face from the impact with the rock. In front of him, the elemental's form seemed to be thickening, becoming denser, more tangible. He saw the indistinct form of a man being shaped by the air and the debris that spun around in it, saw long arms reaching for Ellie.

She sat still, unmoving, her eyes closed, scratches and cuts appearing on her skin as the twigs and stones trapped in the whirlwind brushed and broke against her, her long bright hair lifting and twisting in the pull of the wind.

He strained against the pressure that held him in place. He could barely see the outline of the elemental, but he saw the depressions in her skin as if large fingers were wrapping around her throat, saw them deepen as they squeezed.

"No!" he felt the scream roar out of his throat. "Ellie!"

He saw the elemental flinch back suddenly, the indents on her skin disappearing as the fingers let go. The pressure against him lessened slightly, and the wind faltered. The elemental thrashed suddenly, pulling away from her, rising slightly in the small cave, trying to turn.

* * *

Sam couldn't see anything special about any of the circles. He began to cut through all the temporary circles, breaking the edges, smudging the outlines. How would know when he got the right one? He dropped the flashlight and it rolled away, the light pointing out of the room. At once, he could see light rising from a circle on the other side of the room. He grabbed the flashlight and turned it off, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the almost total darkness. The lit circle seemed brighter. He ran toward it, the silver knife in his hand.

* * *

Dean watched as the elemental struggled. It looked like something was holding it, but he couldn't imagine what. He looked at Ellie again. She sat like a statue, immobile. He couldn't see her breathing. Then he saw her chest rise slowly, so slowly as to be almost indiscernible. He looked at the elemental, its movements becoming sluggish, the density of the air forming it diluting. He realised what she'd done, what she was doing. He'd done it himself a couple of times, but never without either dying or help.

* * *

Sam reached the circle and sliced the knife downwards, above the outer line. There was a brilliant flash of light where the blade cut and he threw his arm up to cover his eyes. The light sped around the outer circle, lighting up the shape of the pentacle inside, and died.

He sank to the floor in the darkness. He hoped he'd been in time.

* * *

Dean fell forward as the pressure against him ceased without warning. He crawled to Ellie, and stopped, afraid to touch her, to disturb whatever state she was in.

The oil in the lamp was almost finished. The flame flickered uncertainly as it moved around the bowl. In the near darkness and fluttering light, he couldn't be sure of what he was seeing, if she was still breathing or not. He heard a long, slow inhale, and felt himself go weak with relief.

"Ellie." He reached out to touch her face. She turned to look at him, eyes opening slowly, her pupils dilated and huge.

"Sam broke the circle." She smiled.

He nodded, moving closer to her. "You went out of your body?"

She nodded. "It was the only way I could think of to be able to fight on equal terms."

And she was exhausted by the effort, she realised, but didn't say to him.

"It could have killed you." His face was drawn, his eyes dark.

"It would have killed me just as quickly if I'd been sitting here doing nothing," she said quietly.

He looked away, corralling the fear he'd felt, his instinctive anger that she'd put herself in harm's way. He couldn't argue with her over it. She'd taken what she'd thought was the best possible course of action. The fact that it had scared the crap out of him wasn't really relevant.

He felt her fingers touch his shoulder and turned back to her.

"Let's get out of here."

He nodded.

They crawled out of the tunnel, Ellie retrieving the mangled mess of her talismans and wire as she went. The day had started an hour ago, and sunshine filled the small clearing in front of the cave. All around them, the trees had been smashed, splintered, the trunks leaning drunkenly this way and that, a layer of dirt and forest humus lying over everything. Ellie looked around, glad that the elemental had been wasting its energies on destruction. She didn't think she could have fought it at its full strength.

Dean looked around. "Temper tantrum?"

She nodded. "They're formed on a single emotion, with a single task. If they can't complete it, the emotion tends to get out of hand."

She looked up the slope. It was going to be a long climb back to the road.

* * *

Dean closed the phone. "Sam should be here in a couple of hours."

Ellie nodded, lying on her back in the sun-warmed pine needles, her arm behind her head.

Dean sat next to her, looking over her face and body. Most of the cuts were small, and already clotted. Her face was mottled with bruises down one side, and he could see the marks on her throat, in the shape of the fingers that had tried to strangle her. She healed fast and he knew the bruising would be gone in a couple of weeks.

"I wish I'd had a chance to tell him, before he'd died," he said, looking through the trees, down the mountain.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. "He knew how you felt. He felt the same way. He told me that he thought of you and Sam as his sons, his family."

The conversation with Bobby had been a late-night one, lubricated with Bobby's rotgut whiskey and the sound of rain on the roof, a conversation that had wound its way through their memories and thoughts without hurry. Dean had been in Cicero, and they'd both had their reasons to talk about the brothers, their impact on their lives.

"He loved you and he worried about you. He knew that you loved him too."

He nodded, lying down beside her, closing his eyes. Instead of the parade of those loved and lost, there was now just darkness, quiet. He felt her move and he lifted his arm, curving it back around her as she wriggled close to him, her arm sliding over his chest.

"I wanted to ask him why he hadn't had kids. After we found out about Karen, it didn't seem like the right thing to ask."

Ellie thought of Bobby's face, when he'd told her about his last conversation with Karen. She couldn't tell Dean. It wasn't her secret to share, even with his death. He'd regretted it bitterly, she knew. Regretted denying Karen at first, but after spending time with John's boys, had regretted it for himself as well. The unfairness of life, her parents hadn't wanted a child and that had scarred her. Bobby had discovered he had wanted them when it was too late, and that had scarred him.

Beside her, she could feel Dean working himself up to ask her something. She had a good idea of what. He still wanted a family, she knew. His own family. To love and protect and cherish. She didn't know how she felt about that. She'd promised herself never to have a child, and her life as a hunter had precluded the possibility effectively.

"Do you feel the same way about having a family now?" The hesitancy in his voice made her heart contract sharply.

"I don't know." She thought of the impossible loneliness of her childhood, the ache of wanting something she could never have. It would be different for them, she knew that intellectually. Emotionally, though, something in her froze at the thought of bringing a child into the world, froze with her fear of not being able to give a child the love and security that it deserved.

He felt her deep sigh and wished he hadn't spoken. It wasn't like he was all that clear on the subject either. What he wanted and what he could get were usually miles apart. He knew that if it ever happened, it would be with her. And if she didn't want that … then he'd have to deal with it. There was no one else for him. Nowhere else he belonged.

* * *

_You have to crawl into the wounds to discover what your fears are._

_Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin._

**END**


End file.
